by K. J. Parker
“Have some more of the pickled cabbage.”
She smiled. “No thanks, I’m full. Couldn’t eat another thing.”
“Suit yourself. I like pickled cabbage. Shame it doesn’t like me.” He stuck his forefinger in the jar and hooked out a matted clump of the stuff. “Gives me guts ache like nobody’s business, but what can you do?”
Here was a man who brooked no nonsense, not even from his own entrails. She’d managed a fist-sized chunk of stale bread and the very last of the cheese. There were still seven jars of the pickled cabbage, enough to last for ages and ages. She was ravenous.
“The best pickled cabbage in the empire—” He paused, rubbed his chest and pulled a face. “We were on campaign with the Seventh and the Forty-third, just before young Senza took over as commander-in-chief. Good mob, the Seventh, though I gather they got wiped out in that last battle, while you were inside. You heard about that one? Anyhow, the enemy Fifteenth, Sixth and Twenty-third were all around us, so we’d dug in on the slopes of this mountain, about a day’s march from Erroso. Anyway, long story short, there was a poxy little village and we turned it over pretty good, because we hadn’t eaten for a week, and the cellars were jammed with the stuff, great big thin tall pottery jars with pointed ends. Food of the gods.” He winced and crammed his right hand down on his chest. “Turned me up pretty bad, mind, so come the battle I was stood there in the front rank, with the Twenty-third lancers coming straight at us, and all I could think about was the pain in my tummy. Our company got a commendation for that action, but buggered if I know what went on. Funny, isn’t it, the things you remember and the things you don’t?”
She looked at him. He’d gone white, and he was breathing in short gasps. “Are you all right?”
“It’s the brine,” he said. “Rock salt: it’s got more spite to it than sea salt, rots your insides. Well, if you’re done we’d better be making a move. Still three good hours of daylight.”
He stood up, swayed backwards and forwards, and sat down again in a heap. She noticed that his right hand was clamped on his left arm. She’d seen something like that before.
“Give me a moment,” he said hoarsely. “Got a bit of a stitch. It’s all right, it’ll go away in a minute.”
White as paper. “You’ve had this before?”
“Now and again. Bloody pickled cabbage. Or fried food. Fried food does me no good at all.”
“Porpax,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Where are we?”
He frowned at her. “I told you, didn’t I? Don’t ask.”
“Yes, but I don’t know where we are, and if anything were to happen to you, I couldn’t find my way out and get help. Look, I know the road’s over that way somewhere, but where does this track lead to? Is there a village anywhere near?”
Maybe there was a hint of fear in his eyes. “Don’t talk stupid,” he said, “it’s just gas. It’ll pass.”
Foxgloves; someone told her once that you could squeeze the juice of foxgloves, and that sometimes helped. But she couldn’t see any, and couldn’t remember if it was the right time of year. She was woefully ignorant about that sort of thing. “Is there a village?”
He shook his head. “That’s the point,” he said. “That’s why we came this way.”
“But if I keep on the way we’re going—”
“Shut up, will you? You’re getting on my nerves.”
There had to be something, besides foxgloves. “Lie back,” she said; “try to breathe.” She unstoppered the water bottle and splashed some on her sleeve. His forehead felt cold. “You’re right,” she said, “it’s just gas. Serves you right for guzzling half a jar of the filthy stuff.”
He nodded, a tiny movement. “That’s what I said, gas. Be as right as rain in a bit. I think I’ll just close my eyes for a while.”
She watched him until the light faded. The last she saw, he was still breathing, just about. As soon as the sun went down, it got bitter cold. She found a blanket by feel and wrapped it round herself. She listened for his breathing and could just make it out. She fell asleep.
Dawn woke her up out of a dream which ended with Oida calling out to her: don’t leave me, or something like that. She’d slept at a bad angle and she had a crick in her neck. She looked at him. He was sitting where she’d left him, propped up against a tree. His head was slumped forward on his chest and his hands dangled over his knees. She got up and lifted his left hand. It was remarkably heavy. She prodded about round his wrist searching for a pulse – she never knew where to look – then gave up. He was cold, and his face was grey. When she let go of the hand, it flopped.
So much for Colour Sergeant Porpax of the Guards, who she’d been too scared of to kill. She went through his pockets and found a sailcloth bag with twenty-six gold angels in it; nothing else. Of all the inconsiderate, self-centred – he’d known where they were, but now he’d thoughtlessly died, leaving her with two enormous, vile-tempered dray horses in the middle of nowhere. And he’d said he was reliable. She had a good mind to tell Oida to ask for his money back. Then she remembered that Oida hadn’t actually paid him. Twelve thousand angels saved, just like that; if he fell in a sewer, he’d come up clutching a priceless gold chalice. Damn the man.
Very briefly she considered burying Porpax, rather than leave him for the crows and foxes and the badgers. But the ground was stony, the shovel clipped to the side of the cart was basically a toy with a paper-thin blade, and just the thought of trying to move that colossal bulk made her feel very tired. She unwound the scarf from around his neck, threw the backsabre into the cart, tricked and wrestled the horrible horses into their collars and set off for wherever the hell it was she was going.
Read on in The Two of Swords: Part 17.
extras
meet the author
K. J. Parker is the pseudonym of Tom Holt, a full-time writer living in the south-west of England. When not writing, Holt is a barely competent stockman, carpenter and metalworker, a two-left-footed fencer, an accomplished textile worker and a crack shot. He is married to a professional cake decorator and has one daughter.
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BY K. J. PARKER
The Fencer trilogy
Colours in the Steel
The Belly of the Bow
The Proof House
The Scavenger trilogy
Shadow
Pattern
Memory
The Engineer trilogy
Devices and Desires
Evil for Evil
The Escapement
The Company
The Folding Knife
The Hammer
Sharps
The Two of Swords: Volume One
The Two of Swords: Volume Two
The Two of Swords: Volume Three
The Two of Swords (e-novellas)
BY TOM HOLT
Expecting Someone Taller
Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?
Flying Dutch
Ye Gods!
Overtime
Here Comes the Sun
Grailblazers
Faust Among Equals
Odds and Gods
Djinn Rummy
My Hero
Paint Your Dragon
Open Sesame
Wish You Were Here
Only Human
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Valhalla
Nothing But Blue Skies
Falling Sideways
Little People
The Portable Door
In Your Dreams
&nbs
p; Earth, Air, Fire and Custard
You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps
Someone Like Me
Barking
The Better Mousetrap
May Contain Traces of Magic
Blonde Bombshell
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages
Doughnut
When It’s A Jar
The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice
The Good, the Bad and the Smug
The Management Style of the Supreme Beings
Dead Funny: Omnibus 1
Mightier Than the Sword: Omnibus 2
The Divine Comedies: Omnibus 3
For Two Nights Only: Omnibus 4
Tall Stories: Omnibus 5
Saints and Sinners: Omnibus 6
Fishy Wishes: Omnibus 7
The Walled Orchard
Alexander at the World’s End
Olympiad
A Song for Nero
Meadowland
I, Margaret
Lucia Triumphant
Lucia in Wartime
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