by K. J. Parker
(‘That’s not a tower,’ Poldarn whispered. ‘Towers go up. That goes sideways.’
‘It’s a short tower. Rubes, remember?’)
—A square, squat windowless building two story’s high, with one massive door and a flat, crenellated roof, right at the far end of the village. It was considerably bigger than any other building in the place, and the walls were made of stone.
‘Four dormitories built round a courtyard,’ Copis explained, keeping her voice down so as not to be heard by the small crowd of old men, women and children that had been following them all the way down the street, warily keeping their distance, like crows. ‘Quite common in places that got torched a hundred years or so ago and then rebuilt. When the enemy show up they drive the stock into the middle and snuggle down till the bad people have gone away. Probably built over a grain-pit. Good idea so long as there’s only a few of the enemy; otherwise it’s just making their job easier.’
The door was open wide enough to drive the cart through into the courtyard without stopping. The interior was a bare, square cattle pen with a churned mud floor (‘Been used recently,’ Copis observed. ‘Which suggests they’ve had trouble here lately’) and a few post-and-rail fences to divide the space up into compartments – one pen for the cows, another for the goats, another for the pigs, and so on; no problem telling which pen had been which, just look at the floor, or sniff. Copis drove the cart into the goat pen, which was the biggest, jumped down and tied up to a rail. She didn’t say anything or look at the crowd, who carried on staring at them both in silence.
So far, all according to plan. Nothing could be done until the kids had run out to the fields and called the men back, during which time, Copis had stressed in her briefing, it was vital that he sit absolutely still up on the box, avoiding all eye contact and not making a sound. He’d thought that would probably be pretty difficult to pull off when she’d first told him about it; in the event, it was the next thing to impossible. Though the old men and women all kept as still as gateposts, some of the children were waving or making faces; he could see them out of the corner of his eye, though he was careful to keep staring at the line between the top of the roof and the sky. Timing, of course, was everything; the critical moment had to come as near as possible to noon. The god outfit was excruciatingly heavy and uncomfortable and he wished that he’d had an opportunity to get used to wearing it on the way here, but it had been raining on and off all the way and, as Copis had pointed out, gods don’t drive into town looking like drowned rats. That was another dangerous variable. It didn’t look as if it was going to rain in the next hour or so, but after that it’d be touch and go; they could risk rushing the act and losing the thread, or they could play it out at the proper pace and risk a cloudburst, which would scupper their credibility in a few moments, or they could time it exactly right and use the rain as part of the act (really impressive if they pulled it off, disastrous if they didn’t). It didn’t help his nerves to reflect that the penalty for screwing up was anything between getting pelted with donkey shit and a selection of nasty, painful ways to die; whereas in towns, Copis had told him, charlatans are treated with a certain degree of good humour, out in the sticks they don’t take kindly to being made fools of.
Eventually the men showed up and pushed their way through to the front of the crowd. Poldarn was annoyed that he couldn’t look directly at these people, since he wanted to study the shapes of their faces, the variations of hair and eye colour, the range of height and build. From what he’d been able to see out of the corner of his eye, they seemed to have more in common with the dead soldiers he’d found next to him when he first woke up than with their enemies or either detachment of cavalry, but there wasn’t a great deal in it either way. Mostly the men were wearing plain, light brown shirts, coats and trousers, basic homespun dyed grey and faded by the sun and rain; the women, blouses and long, heavy skirts of the same material, plain, yellow-white scarves and shawls over their heads and wrapped round their necks to cover their hair. Mostly their faces were poor, thin and ugly, though he guessed that that told him more about his background than the reality of their situation. That information, however, was far more useful to him than an insight into the daily lives of a bunch of – what was that word? Rubes? He had a strong feeling that he wasn’t one of them.
Now that the men were here, still nothing happened . . . They watched in silence while Copis carried on with her chores (spinning them out, he guessed, though she wasn’t obvious about it) and still the only sounds were the shuffling of feet in the mud, the occasional cough or sneeze, and a little muted chatter among the children, occasionally cut off by a hissed ‘Sssh!’
No reason, of course, why it shouldn’t go on like this indefinitely. Copis had explained the basic premise – gods are so far above the concerns of mortals that they don’t even notice them unless a human intermediary points them out; the god is only partly there, in any event, like the summit of a mountain poking up above a blanket of low cloud. It went without saying that there was nothing the mortals had that the god could possibly want. His human companion, on the other hand, needed food and shelter just like anybody else, and if these weren’t provided for her unsolicited, she’d demand them as of right. Saying thank you was out of the question (you don’t thank the ground for letting you tread on it) and as for curing warts or telling fortunes . . .
‘You came up the road, then,’ a man said.
Copis didn’t answer. She hadn’t heard him. Probably she was too busy listening to other, better voices inside her head. There was a very good reason why she shouldn’t answer, but offhand Poldarn couldn’t remember what it was.
Some time later, long enough for Copis to curry-comb the horses’ manes, the same man said, ‘Reckon you’ve been on the road a few days. Not many folks travelling about, this time of year.’
‘No,’ Copis replied, and went on with what she was doing.
At that point the sun came out from behind a cloud, and Poldarn (who was suffering agonies from cramp) raised both hands in front of him, palms outwards, to let her know that he was going for the Special Effect. She didn’t give any indication that she’d seen his signal, but that was how they’d planned it, so he had to assume she was ready and hope for the best.
The Special Effect was the heart and soul of the act. Wired to the rim of the silly brass-and-glass-paste diadem he wore round his head was one particular lump of glass that was rather special. Copis had explained that it acted as a sort of funnel for daylight – it was something to do with its shape, she’d explained – and if you held it up to the sun just so it concentrated the light into a tiny point that grew hot enough to start a little fire. They were common enough on Torcea, where people had known about them for hundreds of years and used them instead of tinderboxes (at least they used to; it had been a fad, and they were now distinctly old-fashioned) and called them burning-glasses. The trick, which he’d had plenty of time to practise on the long trudge across the moor, was to catch a beam of light in this glass without making it obvious that he was up to something and concentrate it on the small twist of sulphur-impregnated twine that stuck up out of the thick paper packet that Copis had painstakingly inserted into one of the apples he’d found in the dead horseman’s saddlebag.
She’d told him what to do next – as soon as the wick starts to smoulder, pick up the apple and hold it where they can all see, count to three and throw it as high as you can in the air; and she’d given him a fairly vague idea of what to expect. But since her supply of Special Effects was severely limited and she had no way of getting any more after they were all used up, it was out of the question to waste one on mere practice. He’d assumed she’d been exaggerating.
On its own the mysterious appearance of a wisp of smoke curling up out of a perfectly ordinary-looking apple was enough to get the crowd’s attention; when the wick started to crackle and throw off sparks, like overheated iron hammered on the anvil, they stared and made some muffled horrified-fas
cination noises. They reared back when he suddenly rose up and threw the burning apple into the air. When it vanished in a red and green fireball, accompanied by a devastating roll of thunder—
‘At that point,’ Copis had told him, ‘it can go one of two ways. Either they’ll go flat on their faces and worship you as a god, or we both get thrown down a well as sorcerors. I guess the uncertainty is part of the fun.’
Fortunately, she’d continued, there’s always some woman near the front who looks at you and says, ‘What the hell was that . . . ?’
‘Always?’ he’d asked.
‘Always so far,’ she’d replied.
‘Ah. Exactly how many times have you done this, by the way?’
‘Four.’
Fifth time lucky . . . ‘What the hell was that?’ gasped a woman near the front, as the rest of the crowd shuffled backwards with varying degrees of urgency.
‘What, that?’ Copis’ face was a study in boredom. ‘I suppose he must have seen an evil spirit. There seem to be more of them about than usual this year.’
The woman stared at her. ‘And what did he just do, then?’
‘Killed it, of course,’ Copis said, brushing caked mud off her spare boots.
‘What with?’
Copis looked up, frowning disapprovingly. ‘For pity’s sake,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you people ever seen a thunderbolt before?’
Apparently they hadn’t; not one like that, at any rate. They’d stopped trying to back away and were straining to get a good view. ‘So who’s he, then?’ asked a voice at the back.
‘You mean you—?’ Copis looked shocked; horrified, even. ‘Give me strength,’ she muttered. ‘I’d heard people were ignorant out here, but I’d have thought even the likes of you would recognise Poldarn when you saw him.’
Short, anxious pause. ‘Who?’ asked a younger woman near the front.
Copis rubbed her forehead, as if in some pain. ‘What do you mean, who? Poldarn the god, of course. How many Poldarns do you think there are? Now would you all mind either going away or keeping quiet? I’m very tired, and I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’
Poldarn, as still as a statue up on the cart, couldn’t see their faces or make out exactly what they were saying; neither was necessary. The tone of their frantic, muted buzzing told him all he needed to know. It was difficult not to grin – Copis had warned him specifically about that – but he managed it.
It was a long time before anybody spoke. Eventually an old man on the far right-hand edge of the crowd piped up. ‘That’s his name, is it? Poldarn?’
Copis (who was doing the other boot now) nodded without looking up.
‘I never knew he had a name.’
‘Well, he does,’ Copis said.
‘So what’s he doing here, then?’
At this, the rest of the crowd started shushing the old man in furious disapproval (good sign, excellent sign). Slightly intimidated but afraid of losing face, the old man repeated the question.
Copis sighed. ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she said, still looking at the heel of the boot, ‘but he’s on his way to Josequin.’ She smiled bleakly, as if at a private joke. ‘Let’s say he has business there,’ she added.
That shut them all up; no need to ask what the ‘business’ might be. A young woman somewhere in the middle of the crowd started to cry, and the lonely sound in the middle of so much horrified silence made Poldarn feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was all very well for Copis to talk about not feeling sorry for the marks, who were only rubes and peasants, not to mention a damn sight better off than they were, but this was real fear and heartbreak, and conjuring it up for the sake of scrounging some food and a place to sleep struck him as no way to behave. Too late to worry about that now, though.
Some men, presumably whatever passed for community leaders in those parts, were whispering together heatedly somewhere at the back. The debate ended abruptly, and one of them shuffled through the crowd to address Copis, asking her in a subdued, almost pleading voice if there was anything they could do to please the god.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Be quiet.’
That wasn’t what they’d been expecting to hear, but they did it anyway, while Copis carried on with her chores (now she was darning a hole in a sock). Crowds, however, aren’t very good at keeping still and quiet for long periods of time, and after a while someone asked the question again.
Copis frowned. ‘All right,’ she said, in the manner of someone inventing jobs for a small child who insists on helping Mummy. ‘The god doesn’t need anything, of course, but I’m mortal, and I have to eat and drink. Bread, bacon, cheese, beans, dried fruit, that sort of thing. Beer rather than wine; wine gives me heartburn.’
Business was quite brisk after that, and the back of the cart quickly filled up with provisions. At first the donors tried to tell Copis their names, but she shooed them away, making the point that the god knew exactly who had given what, because he knew everything, and furthermore he wasn’t the slightest bit inclined to fool about with the workings of destiny just because one human had given another a slab of slightly mouldy cheese, so really it didn’t matter anyway. The effect of this negative attitude was that the next wave of offerings were substantially better quality, the idea presumably being that even a god would be persuaded to bend a rule or two in consideration of the finest plaster-sealed soft ewe’s milk cheese with chives.
When there wasn’t any room left in the cart, and neither the god nor his priestess had displayed any interest or caused any more explosions, the crowd subsided a little, though nobody showed any signs of being ready to go home. Copis hadn’t anticipated that. Even she couldn’t spin out her chores for ever, so she announced that it was time for her to meditate, and if they knew what was good for them they’d leave her well alone while she was at it. She then sat down cross-legged on the ground, laid the backs of her hands on her knees, closed her eyes and slowed her breathing right down – very impressive to watch, Poldarn had to admit, though he could only just see her at the very edge of his vision. For his part he was suffering the agonies of the damned, at first from cramp and strain, later from an overwhelming urge to close his eyes and go to sleep – which was, of course, the one thing he mustn’t do, under any circumstance. All in all, he figured, defrauding honest villagers of their meagre resources struck him as desperately hard, gruelling work, far more so than digging peat or pushing the big saw in a sawmill, and he wasn’t sure he was up to it. One thing was certain; he’d have earned his pay by the time they got out of there.
They’ve got to shove off soon, he told himself as the excruciating vigil carried on into the night, they’ve all got to go to work in the morning; they can’t afford to lose a night’s sleep. This turned out to be a serious underestimation of rural piety; furthermore, the heartless creatures sent to their houses for lanterns and torches, which put paid to his hopes of being able to nod off unnoticed in the dark.
Some time later – about two hundred and fifty years, by Poldarn’s estimation – Copis came out of her trance, got up slowly and lifted a small wooden box down from the cart. He recognised it, and wondered what on earth she was up to, since there was nothing in there but half a loaf of extremely elderly bread that she’d insisted on keeping, even when they were both hungry. She opened the box, took out the loaf and scraped off some of the thick coating of blue mould on to a little dish with the edge of her small knife. Then she shut the box and looked round.
In spite of being told not to, the villagers had brought out a sad assortment of their sick and infirm, ranging from a young man with a missing arm to an old, old woman swaddled up in blankets who looked like she didn’t stand much chance of lasting out the night. Copis stood up and walked backwards and forwards, occasionally leaning forward to take a closer look, feel for a temperature, or roll back an eyelid. She didn’t say a word, but after she’d inspected all the various exhibits she pointed to four of them and clapped her hands suddenly for attention. She expla
ined that she’d examined the casualties through the god’s eyes, and seen that these four could be saved without upsetting the complex patterns of destiny. In the dish were the scrapings of the god’s own food; mixed with garlic juice and swallowed four times a day for ten days, it would cure them and, provided they were properly grateful, they ought to carry on to live long and useful lives. Should anybody else presume to eat the god’s food, she warned, she wasn’t prepared to be responsible for the consequences, which might well include blindness, madness or death.
There was a loud murmur of wonder from the crowd, as the relatives of the chosen four stepped up to receive their share of the blue dust. When the little ceremony was over, Copis announced that she now had to go into a very deep trance indeed, in order to tell the god what she’d done and ask him to make the necessary arrangements; it was essential, she added, that she wasn’t disturbed, else she, the four sick people and anybody else in a day’s radius might suffer some unpleasant consequences. She’d rather they went away completely, but if they insisted on coming back shortly after first light, she would probably be through with her trance by then. Then she knelt down, crossed her legs and closed her eyes.
A few moments later they had the place to themselves.
‘It’s all right,’ she hissed softly, ‘they’ve gone. Not far, though; I think they’re all sitting outside in the street. You can relax for a bit, but don’t make any noise.’
‘Actually,’ Poldarn whispered back, ‘I think I’m stuck. You’ve got no idea—’
‘Ssh.’ She got up slowly and walked round the courtyard, still in character. ‘I can’t see anybody,’ she whispered, kneeling down again, ‘but that doesn’t mean anything. There could easily be kids or something up on the roofs.’