by K. J. Parker
‘Why do you want to know that?’ the soldier asked. He had an accent that Monach couldn’t quite place.
‘None of your business,’ Monach said. ‘Is he here or isn’t he?’
The soldier shook his head. ‘He’s expected,’ he added. ‘Any time now, in fact. What’s it to you?’
Monach pulled a face. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘which direction is he coming from? I’d better go out to meet him, this can’t wait.’
‘Messenger, are you?’ Monach didn’t answer that. ‘All right, please yourself,’ the soldier went on. ‘He ought to be coming in up the east road.’
Monach knew that already, of course. Still, it did no harm to verify. ‘East road,’ he muttered, ‘that figures. Right, thank you, I’d better get moving.’
An hour up the road, he was overtaken by a horseman riding dangerously fast on the sloppy, stony road. It turned out to be one of the sword-monks he’d sent after Cronan.
He pulled up and waited for the monk to come back and talk to him. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked him.
The monk was grey with exhaustion. ‘Came back to find you,’ he said. ‘Bad information. Cronan wasn’t coming this way after all. Wild-goose chase.’
Monach scowled. ‘Bloody hell,’ he groaned. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘Courier,’ the monk replied. ‘Carrying a letter under Chaplain Cleapho’s personal seal, telling Cronan to sit tight at the Faith and Fortitude till he’s told otherwise. Here,’ he added, pulling a rolled-up page from his pocket; he tried to hand it down and dropped it instead. Monach retrieved it and read it quickly.
‘Buggery,’ he said. ‘That screws up everything. Where did you find this courier, then?’
The monk closed his eyes, struggling to find the words. ‘Back along,’ he said, ‘maybe an hour up the road from here. Courier said he was coming down from Toizen.’
‘What? Toizen’s on the north coast. What in hell’s name is Cleapho doing all the way up there?’
The monk had just enough strength to shrug his shoulders. Monach shook his head. ‘I’m not sure about this,’ he said. ‘Yes, that looks like Cleapho’s seal, and I’ve seen it once or twice before, but it could be a good fake. Then again, why would anybody want to fake a message like that? If Cronan’s not at the Faith and Fortitude, he’ll know that a letter telling him to stay there must be phoney. I don’t get this at all.’
The monk sighed impatiently. ‘Well, he’s not where you said he’d be. We’ve been up and down this road, no sign of him. Nobody’s seen anything like a troop of cavalry, either. So, that letter may or may not be bad information; what you got from the captain in Shance definitely was. Go figure.’
Monach thought for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Where’s this courier now?’
‘Ah.’ The monk grinned. ‘That’s more a matter of theology than geography.’
‘You mean you killed him?’
‘Wouldn’t hold still,’ the monk explained. ‘It was that or let him get away.’
Monach shook his head. ‘Just for once,’ he said, ‘wouldn’t it be nice if something turned out the way it’s supposed to? All right, not your fault. Where are the others?’
‘Heading for the Faith and Fortitude,’ the monk replied, ‘Wherever the hell that might be. Brother Aslem reckoned he knows where it is.’
‘Halfway between Josequin and Selce,’ Monach said. ‘Please, tell me that’s where they’re headed.’
‘I think so. Doesn’t mean a lot to me, because I haven’t a clue where Selce is, either, but I’m fairly sure that’s what Aslem said.’
Monach sighed. ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ he said. ‘All right, here’s what I want you to do.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘First,’ he said, ‘find a tree or a bush or something and rest; I’d say come with me back to the camp at Cric, but I don’t think you’ll make it that far in the state you’re in. When you’re feeling better, I want you to head back to Shance, find that little snot of a duty officer and put the fear of the gods into him – tell him he’s a traitor, deliberately misleading us, put it on thick as you can, because I need to know where this CO got his false orders from; someone’s playing games with someone else, and if we can find out who, we might stand a chance of figuring all this out. When you’ve done that, get back here to Cric; if I’m not there, you can bet I’ll be at the Faith and Fortitude. If I’m not, get yourself back to Deymeson and tell them there’s something very screwy going on, and to make ready for an attack, just in case. I don’t think either Cronan or Tazencius has tumbled to what we’re up to,’ he added, as a look of fear crossed the monk’s face. ‘I certainly can’t think of any way they could’ve found out, and we haven’t actually done anything yet, so it couldn’t be educated guesswork; still, better safe than sorry, and if all this is deliberately to mislead us, somebody must know what we’re up to and they may just possibly consider a direct attack on the order. Not worth the risk. You got that?’
‘I think so,’ the monk replied, yawning hugely. ‘Sorry,’ he added. ‘And you’re right. I’ve got to stop for a rest, before I fall off and break my silly neck.’
Monach left him to it, turned the cart round and headed back to Cric. It was just his rotten luck, he reflected, to find himself in the middle of a situation that was far too complicated for him to manage, with responsibility for the survival of the order, possibly the empire as well, and nobody to tell him what to do or how to do it. All his life he’d been taught not to think for himself – better still, not to think, just draw and cut, guided by faith and instinct. All his life he’d been warned that the overall view, the big picture was not for the likes of him, at least not until he’d achieved enlightenment and been promoted to Father. All his life, he’d been trained to believe in the value of instinct and ignorance, two qualities which weren’t likely to get him very far in his present situation. No wonder that he felt such a strong affinity with the divine Poldarn, harbinger of confusion, the god who didn’t know he was a god.
A bizarre thought occurred to him, and he laughed out loud. Maybe he was Poldarn.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. Here he was, driving through the northern villages in a cart, liable at any moment to make a mistake that would plunge the empire into war, bring about the destruction of the order (which would mean the end of religion, since it was an article of faith in the order that nobody else knew the most fundamental bases of doctrine) and quite possibly open the gates to the enemy incarnate, the raiders – how they fitted into the picture he wasn’t sure; but then again, if he was Poldarn, that was to be expected; that they were involved in some way he was absolutely certain.
It started to rain, but he hardly noticed. Of course; that solved everything. Had Father Tutor known who he really was? Of course; Father Tutor knew everything, and that was why he’d chosen him for the mission, sent him to find out the truth about rumours of his own (false) appearances. Unfortunately, he’d been too stupid to make the obvious connections at the time, and Father Tutor had died before he’d had a chance to explain – or perhaps it was essential that Poldarn should remain ignorant of his true identity until the end of the world had been successfully encompassed – in which case something had gone wrong, he’d failed; had Father Tutor sent him on the mission on purpose to expose him to the truth and therefore make the end of the world impossible? Just the sort of thing you’d expect a father tutor of the order to do – frustrate destiny, save the world from its appointed doom. Had he always been Poldarn, he wondered, or was divinity something that happened to you later in life, like puberty or baldness; was it something you were chosen for, on merit, like the priesthood? If so, what had he done to deserve it? Had he been chosen out of all the world because he was the only man alive stupid enough to become a god and not realise it? Above all, what ought he to do next? As Poldarn, it was his duty to bring about the end of the world, but Father Abbot had ordered him to kill Cronan because that was the only thing
that could save the world from ending. Which took precedence, his duty as a god or the direct orders of his superior officer? Or had Father Abbot sent him to kill Cronan because killing Cronan was the event that would bring about the end of the world – which would mean that Father Abbot had deliberately misled him; until recently, that would have been inconceivable, but now he knew that Father Abbot fornicated with loose women in the dead of night, he had to admit it was possible.
What should he do next? Trust his instincts, of course. Have faith. Above all, resist the disastrous temptation to think, because thought allows a moment to slide in between the breached circle and the draw, thought negates faith. To become God, you must become perfect, eliminate the moment, eliminate thought . . . Was that why he’d been chosen? Because he was the best of his year at swordfighting?
. . . And if my sister had six tits she’d be a cow, as they said in Sansory. He sighed, and shook his head. For a moment, he’d almost believed it, proving how easy it can be to pick up a bloody stupid notion, like a nail in the sole of your boot. Whoever he was (and at times it was hard to keep track, what with his true name and his name in religion and all those aliases), he was pretty certain he wasn’t a god; and if he was a god he wouldn’t be Poldarn, not if you paid him. The plain fact was, the gods didn’t exist, as he’d known in his heart since he was a second-year novice. Religion wasn’t about gods, it was all in your own mind, it was the self-denying moment between the instinct and the draw, nothing more or less than that. He grinned. A god who didn’t know who he was, maybe. A god who’s an atheist, no.
‘Besides,’ he said aloud, ‘if I’m Poldarn, where’s the crow?’
Whereupon not one but three crows erupted out of a tall, skinny ash tree beside the road and paddled noisily away through the wet air. For a moment, Monach sat quite still with his mouth open, then he burst out laughing.
He was still chuckling when he rolled into the camp at Cric. It was beginning to get dark, and the campfires stood out in the gloom, their light reflected in glowing clouds of smoke. The rain was falling steadily now, hard enough to make it difficult for Monach to think much further than shelter, warmth, food and sleep. He was wondering how these objectives might best be achieved when a soldier stepped out beside the cart and grabbed the lead horse’s bridle.
‘You’re back, then,’ he said. It was probably the man he’d spoken to earlier, he wasn’t quite sure. ‘You’d better get down and come with me. The general wants to see you.’
Monach woke up out of his train of thought with a snap. ‘What?’ he said. ‘General Cronan?’
There were several soldiers now; lots of soldiers, a dozen at least and more coming. Two more were holding the horses, one was climbing up on to the box of the cart beside him, at least three behind him in the bed, and as many again closing in round him in a rapidly shrinking circle. While he sat still and tried to figure out what was going on, the soldier sitting next to him reached across and pulled the sword out of his scabbard, before he could do anything about it.
The first soldier’s face broke into a grin. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not General Cronan. General Feron Amathy. You coming quietly, or what?’
Chapter Twenty
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Poldarn repeated. ‘You can’t remember seeing anything like it,’ Copis pointed out. ‘In your case, that doesn’t mean much. For all you know, you used to live there.’
Poldarn frowned; he wasn’t in the mood. ‘It’s amazing,’ he said. ‘And you honestly believe we’re going to be able to sell them buttons?’
From the top of the rise they could see Deymeson, dramatically backlit by the sunset: the town, slopped round the foot of the hill as if it had seeped out under the walls of the castle; the fortress, with its double wall and star-pattern bastions; the abbey and the citadel, topped with a massive low, square tower. Nobody in their right mind would ever call it beautiful. It made Poldarn think of the machines in Potto Ilec’s factory: entirely functional, designed to execute some process or operation he couldn’t begin to understand. If Copis had told him that the gods lived there, he’d probably have believed her.
‘For what it’s worth,’ Copis was saying, ‘I’ve never seen it before either; but I’ve heard about it, of course, and I’d have recognised it at once because there’s a picture of it on the back of the silver hard-quarter. Doesn’t do it justice, of course; makes it look pretty.’
Poldarn shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that anybody who could build something like that uses buttons. Or clothes, even. They’re probably covered from head to foot with scales, or feathers.’
Copis sighed. ‘We aren’t here to sell to the monks, silly,’ she said. ‘You may not have noticed, but there’s a fair-sized town as well as that granite monstrosity. That’s where they keep the people who do all the work – you know, scrub the floors, slop out the latrines, cook the food. And do you know what makes them special, as far as we’re concerned? They get paid, in money. Therefore,’ she concluded with a smile, ‘we can sell them buttons.’
They stopped for the night at an inn down in the valley, where for some reason they seemed to cause something of a stir; the grooms and the servers looked at them oddly and wouldn’t say why. That made Poldarn nervous, but Copis swore blind she’d never been there before, let alone tried out the act. ‘I’d remember,’ she said, ‘trust me.’
In the morning they drove up the hill to the Foregate. The Foregate was a gate, but there was no town wall, just an arch, at least fifteen feet high and twelve feet wide, made up of mirror-smooth granite blocks with no decoration or embellishment of any kind, free-standing in the patchy grass. No walls, but two sentries.
‘That’s silly,’ Poldarn pointed out. ‘You could just drive round the whole thing.’
Copis shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t advise it,’ she said. ‘If you did that, they’d call out the guard and you’d find yourself in a cell in the watch-house, if you were lucky.’
Sure enough, the four carts that had been ahead of them on the road were drawn up in line, waiting to go through the gate, while the sentries questioned the drivers. ‘Symbolism, you see,’ Copis explained. ‘Deymeson doesn’t need a wall, because its defence is the awesome reputation of the sword-monks. ’
‘Fine,’ Poldarn said. ‘Then what’s all that masonry further up the hill?’
‘Walls, of course,’ Copis replied. ‘Symbolism is all very well, but some people are too stupid to understand it. The walls and towers and stuff are for their benefit.’
Apparently the sentry hadn’t heard of buttons, or else didn’t believe in them, because he insisted on opening all the barrels and rummaging about inside, like a man loading grain with his empty hands. He gave up eventually, but there was a resentful glow in his eyes that suggested that he didn’t take kindly to being baffled, and would be keeping a very sharp eye on them in future.
Beyond the gate and the scrappy five-acre parcel of scuffed grass and bare mud it stood in were the first houses of the town, warehouses or granaries if their windowless facades were anything to go by. The main street led straight up the steep hill, and the buildings on either side of it gave no indication of what they were used for; two narrow windows per frontage, like scratches or blisters in the blank grey stone, and even those were all on the second or third floor. Some of them had no visible doors or windows at all. There were no people to be seen anywhere.
‘I knew this was going to be a waste of time,’ Poldarn muttered, ‘as soon as you told me this was some kind of religious place. They’re probably all at prayers or doing meditation or something.’
‘Not the ones who live down here,’ Copis said firmly. ‘For a start, the order doesn’t pray in the sense you’re thinking of, they prance about hitting each other with wooden swords. And they live up in the castle, not down here. I don’t suppose they see a monk in this part of town from one year’s end to the next.’
Just then Copis noticed a turning on her left. It was an archway, just wide
enough for the cart to get through if they weren’t too fussy about scraping the wheel hubs. ‘Let’s try this,’ she said.
‘We can’t. For all you know, that could be somebody’s private courtyard.’
‘Then they ought to put up a gate and lock it,’ Copis replied, pulling the cart out in the middle of the street to give herself the right angle to get through the archway. ‘Besides, I’ve got a theory.’
Poldarn signed. ‘More symbolism?’
‘We’ll soon see.’
The archway led into a narrow passage, paved with slate and roofed over, very high up, with dark red tiles. After a very sharp bend, it led into a square.
‘Now that’s more like it,’ Copis said.
It was as if the street had been turned inside out, the way a cushion is turned to hide the seams. In the middle of the square was a fountain, flanked by two statues of young women playing harps. All four sides of the square were lined with open doors; some were shops, with trestles covered with merchandise standing under oilskin awnings; the rest were ordinary houses. Why their owners bothered having them wasn’t clear, since it was fairly obvious that everyone spent most of their time out in the open air, standing on one side of the traders’ trestles or the other. There was one boy with a tray of evil-looking sausages; another sitting on top of a huge barrel, his legs swinging, his hands cradling a big tin cup; on the side of the barrel was chalked a tariff – a quarter a cup, or six for a turner. As for the stalls, pretty much anything you could ever want to buy was there, in every possible permutation of size, colour and quality, from coarse white sailcloth to seven-colour brocade (‘First time I’ve seen that north of the bay,’ Copis whispered in awe), from cheap pine-handled bean-hooks to pattern-welded walking-swords, from clogs to court slippers with absurdly long toes and savagely tight gussets, from green-turned wooden bowls to four-handled pewter goblets, from blanket-cloth ship-jackets to the sort of complicated audience gown that needed two strong maids and a three-foot-long buttonhook to install – everything, in fact, except for buttons.