by K. J. Parker
Nor could he move. His arms were behind his back, joined at the wrists, there was a rope around his waist, and his feet were attached, at a guess to the legs of the chair he was sitting in. Cramp everywhere. A thorough job.
No gag, though; so he said, “Hello?”
Stupid thing to say; somebody laughed. Perhaps the same man who hit him on the side of the head with something solid, quite possibly someone else.
“You’re awake, then.”
Strong accent, but fluent. Probably safe to assume that he was in the hands of the enemy. He tried to remember what had happened, but the smack to the head had confused him. He never could think straight when his head hurt.
Someone said something in a language he couldn’t understand. It was a suggestion, and presumably someone else acted on it: another crack, this time on the other side, just above the ear. He yelped with the pain. More laughter.
“I’m disappointed,” the linguist said. “They told us you soldier-boys were tough.”
“Not me,” he replied. Pause; then the linguist translated. This led to another suggestion, this time across his left collar bone. A stick, he guessed, maybe even a metal bar.
This time he didn’t yelp. Instead, once he’d got past the immediate pain, he asked politely, “Excuse me, but you are who?”
Translation; muttering. Then the linguist said, “Us? We’re Badadzes’ militia. Thought you might’ve figured that out for yourself.”
Loud muttering; he guessed that the rest of the gang weren’t happy with the reply. The linguist didn’t seem bothered. He said: “They reckon it should be us asking the questions. Can’t see where it matters myself if you know who we are. Not like you’ll live to tell anybody.”
Well, he thought, but he found it impossible to feel anything except mild resignation. They were going to kill him, sooner or later, but somehow he didn’t seem to be involved. A tactical error on their part, if they wanted to get information out of him. Without a faint, unrealistic chance of surviving, he had no incentive.
“Here’s the deal,” the linguist said. “We can do it quick and easy, or we can do it mean. Don’t seem to me you like hurting all that much.” Presumably to prove his point, the linguist hit him on the forehead, but he’d been expecting something and kept perfectly quiet. “Well?”
“What do you want?”
He could vaguely remember. A Company had split up, each of them on detached duty as scout for a battalion. His lot had been in the woods, quite near the front of the column. He’d heard shouting behind, then the whistle of an arrow, too close. He’d thrown himself to the ground, the way you do. Then he was in this chair, with a rag over his eyes.
“You’re an officer, right? Got those fancy buttons on your coat. So, tell us all about it. Where you’re headed, numbers, what you’re figuring on doing when you get there. All that.”
He had to make an effort not to smile. He hadn’t bothered taking interrogation at the College; it was optional, and he didn’t need the extra credit. But he knew that questions should be clear and precise, designed to impress the subject with the interrogator’s depth of knowledge. You don’t lie to someone who knows enough to be able to tell you’re lying. All that didn’t meet any of the approved criteria.
The linguist, not a subtle man, must’ve taken his silence for stubbornness. The blow was unexpectedly to his right kneecap, and although he didn’t make a sound, he couldn’t stop himself wincing. A small failure on his part; like losing a pawn in the first three moves.
“I’m sorry,” he said mildly. “I don’t understand the question.”
Someone asked something; the linguist replied; another suggestion, but no attack this time. Instead, quite a debate, with tempers starting to fray. That didn’t alter the fact of the ropes round his wrists and ankles, which meant that his life was very nearly over (trivial artefacts, bits of string, but they made all the difference in the world). Still, it was nice to know that his last stratagem looked like it might work. His teachers at the College would never hear about it, so they wouldn’t be in a position to applaud him or give him a posthumous honorary degree in interrogation management; never mind. When captured and interrogated and all hope is gone, infuriate your captors so that they kill you in a rage before applying extreme torture; it will save you pain and deny them their information. He remembered writing that; copying out his lecture notes. Morbid, he’d thought, and he’d had grave doubts about whether he’d be able to be so clinical, or so coldly brave. He was mildly impressed with himself; not a bad state of mind to die in.
The debate seemed to have wound up, and he heard the linguist say, “Been a change of plan. Ain’t going to kill you after all. There, isn’t that a comfort?”
But; there was going to be a but. The voice sounded smug, and for the first time he felt a slight degree of concern. He waited.
“What we’re going to do,” the linguist went on, “is poke out your eyes, cut off your right hand and bust your left arm so it won’t set right. Then we’re going to turn you loose where your boys’ll be sure to find you. Strong, healthy young man like yourself, could easily live another sixty years.” He paused, then added, “Sixty years in the dark, and you won’t even be able to wipe your own arse. We fancy that’s quite mean enough, don’t you?”
He couldn’t help it; he shuddered, as the cold, twisting panic gripped him. “Course, you’ll be a hero when you get back home,” the voice went on. “The first three years, five maybe, they’ll all be falling over theirselves to help you. After that, though - well, people do forget, don’t they?” There was honey in the voice, and cream; pleasure, in a life that saw little enough of it. A unique chance to hurt a soldier without fear of repercussions. He could understand that. “And a blind cripple ain’t no use, and he does so get in the way. You got any family back home?”
He tried to speak, but his tongue was swollen and clumsy, as though he’d been too long without water. He felt himself jerking forward against the ropes, which was ridiculous; and someone laughed. He felt a spurt of anger, the kind that comes when you’re playing chess with a fool, and he suddenly takes your queen.
“Or,” the linguist said, “you could tell us something useful. Course, we don’t know enough about what you boys are up to, so we don’t rightly know what to ask. Guess you’ll have to think of something pretty good, so we’ll be nice and grateful.”
When captured and interrogated, and all hope is gone . . . if there was a course in being tortured, it followed that somewhere there must be a torturers’ syllabus, with required reading, course notes, a series of lectures. He was inclined to doubt that these people had had that much formal education. An amateur, then; amateur, meaning one who does something for the love of it. Checkmate, he decided.
“Well?”
He had to concentrate hard to get the words out, as though he was the one speaking a foreign language. “The main army is heading for the city—”
“We know that, stupid,” and a sigh.
“But six divisions of pikes under General Arrabese are looping round, following the river valleys, to come up on your blind side.” Under the blindfold he screwed his eyes tight shut, desperate to get the message across crisp and clear. “When they reach the fork in the river, they’ll set out in the middle of the night, leaving their watchfires burning. They have local guides. If all goes well, they should reach the woods in the deep combe by daybreak, so you won’t see them coming. General Euteuchida believes your regular cavalry will be waiting at the top of the valley to launch an attack on the main army as it comes through the pass. The pikemen will be there to take them by surprise. After that, he expects your militia will panic and melt away into the hills rather than risk getting cooped up in the city for a long siege.”
Silence; then someone spoke, and several people laughed. “They’re impressed,” the linguist said. “They reckon you’re probably telling the truth. They think we ought to show how grateful we are by letting you go.” He paused, enjoying himself.
“But I showed them the error of their ways,” he went on. “I told them, that’s the last thing on earth we want to do, considering as how we only picked you up and brought you on with us because your friends’ve got one of our friends, and we needed something to exchange.”
It was like being in the marsh again: putting his foot down and feeling it sink, right up past the knee. Not to kill him; not to blind or maim him, because damaged goods are worth next to nothing; purely a commercial transaction, such as sensible, businesslike people engage in. They never intended to hurt him at all, they were trying it on, just in case he was stupid enough . . .
“Mighty gracious of you to tell us all that, about where the army’s headed to,” the linguist went on. “Reckon the regular boys’ll thank us kindly for that, and it always does to keep in with them, in the way of supplies and all.” A deep, happy chuckle. “Didn’t think you were going to fall for it, all that acting ferocious and mean. Boys here’ve been having a hard time keeping a straight face - mind, they know me, wouldn’t poke a pig with a stick, and you don’t. Still,” he added, after a tiny pause, “don’t alter the fact, you must be dumber than horseshit to let a bunch of farmers make such a fool out of you.” He let that sink in; no need. “But that’s just fine, because if you don’t tell nobody, neither will we.”
A joke, then, like sending the apprentice for the left-handed screwdriver. Rustic humour (he knew all about that). But the army would march into an ambush because of him, his stupidity, his idiotic gullibility. Wouldn’t poke a pig with a stick; he could imagine how they’d laugh about it later, probably for years to come, when the beer was slipping down nicely and they wanted something to feel proud of.
The linguist hadn’t finished with him yet. He was still wallowing in his moment of triumph. “See, we’re just plain country people hereabouts,” he went on (his voice grated, like the heel of a boot on a blister). “We ain’t soldiers, never will be. Thing about you soldiers is, you’re all so damn cruel and mean, you get to thinking everybody’s like you, all over the world. We were so scared of you when we heard you were coming; reckoned you’d drive off our sheep and burn our houses, do God knows what to the womenfolk and kids. But you’re nothing special. In fact, you ain’t even as smart as we are.”
The linguist said something in his own language - probably his last devastating conclusion, translated for the benefit of his neighbours, who laughed and cheered. Country people, he thought, salt of the earth. Just like me.
“Anyhow.” The linguist’s voice told him the feast of good-humoured fun was over, and it was time to get back to work. “We’ll drop you off somewhere, so’s your people find you. You can spin them some yarn, they don’t need to know we ever picked you up. Course, you can tell ’em if you want to, that’s your choice.” Yawn; bored with this game. Also, a certain disdain, as of a man who’s particular about the company he keeps. “You go to sleep now.” He felt a brief but intense pain in the bone as something hard slammed into the side of his head, and then nothing at all.
“Well?” Kunessin said. “What are they saying?”
Dorun sat down beside him on the broken wall. The hem of her dress was filthy with mud and soot. “Is that what you think?” she said. “That I’ve been sent here to reason with you, like some kind of diplomat?”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Diplomats negotiate,” he said. “You look to me like you’re here to try and make the stubborn fool see sense.”
“True,” she replied. “But nobody sent me.” She nodded her head towards the long barn. “They’re all in there,” she said, “muttering.”
He pulled a face. “Should I be worried?”
“Depends,” she replied with a frown, “on the sort of thing you worry about. Your friends turning against you and leaving you here if you won’t see reason: no, you needn’t fret about that.”
“Good,” he said.
She rubbed her eyelids: cinders, or dust. “Aidi’s telling them you’re being stupid - which isn’t disloyalty, just a plain statement of fact - but he’s not suggesting a course of action; he’s more sort of whining, in a very articulate way, of course, but he’s not actually suggesting they dump you or anything. Kudei’s on your side, except he thinks on balance we should go home. Muri’s sticking up for you, of course, like he always does.” She paused. “Doesn’t he get fed up with nobody ever listening to a word he says?”
That took him by surprise. “What?”
She looked at him. “When he says something, nobody takes any notice. I mean, they don’t reply or anything, they just talk across him.” Her frown deepened. “Hadn’t you noticed?”
He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “Are you sure?”
“You mean you’ve never noticed?” She shrugged. “Well, anyhow, that’s what they’re saying, since you asked. I don’t suppose you’re interested in what the girls think.”
“Actually . . .” he said.
She paused, then recited: “Chaere just wants to go home, or at any rate somewhere she can buy shoes. Enyo’s far too worried about Thouridos to bother with anybody else right now. Clea doesn’t want to go home, but she doesn’t think we can stay here, either. Menin’s out gathering things in the woods, which is all she ever seems to do. That’s about it.”
“You left out what you think,” Kunessin said.
“Oh, me. I think we’d have to be mad to stay here, with no food unless we slaughter all the livestock, and if we do that we can’t stay anyway. Oh, Muri offered to feed us all on venison, rabbit and squirrel. I can see why everybody ignored that.”
Kunessin smiled. “Muri’s one of the finest archers I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.
She looked at him. “Squirrel?”
“Don’t knock it. You should try it pan-fried with almonds.”
“Yes, but we haven’t got any almonds. I don’t know if we’ve even still got a pan. Seriously, we can’t stay here. Or we can, but it’d be wretched. We’d be living like savages, and there’s no need for that. Not when there’s a perfectly good ship on its way to take us home.” She looked into his eyes and said, “You do see that, don’t you?”
He shifted away from her a little. “I know all about giving up, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “My dad gave up, when we found the dead bodies. He thought about it carefully, figured it all out, it was purely a matter of numbers, he said. So he gave up, we lost the farm, I had to join the army, and the best years of my life just sort of turned to smoke and drifted away. It took me all that time and more effort than you could possibly understand to get here - which isn’t what I wanted, but I was sensible, I knew I’d never get that; this is instead of that, second best, the runner-up prize. I can’t give up again, I’m too old and tired to go back in the army. I’d rather stay here and eat rats.”
She was silent for a long time. Then she said: “Fine. And what about the rest of us?”
He shrugged. “They can do what they like. If they want to take the ship and go, that’s all right by me. I never forced anybody to come here, and I won’t make them stay.”
Overhead, five rooks were mobbing a hawk, swooping under and over it, getting in its way, slowing it down, robbing it of the speed and space it needed in order to be effective. It had long since given up any thought of fighting, she could tell. It was worn out, and all it wanted to do was get away from those terrible nagging pests. She looked at him, but he was gazing at the burned-out store and the roofless house, and she had to admit she had no way of knowing what he could see there. She knew that he believed that what he’d just said was true. She wanted to walk away, but that would be cruel.
“It’s ironic,” he said at last. “That was always my worst nightmare, when I was a kid, growing up with the war so close. I’d come home one day and I’d find our place looking like that, burnt out, everything completely screwed. It never happened, of course: we lost the farm, but the farm never got touched. And now the war’s over, I’ve left the army, there aren’t any soldiers to be scare
d to death of any more, and this happens.”
She didn’t say anything; it was as though she didn’t know the language. From where she sat, she could see the sea, a blue patch just visible between the bare rafters of the house.
“You’re right,” he said eventually. “We can’t really stay here, not without food. Or at least, we can; but we’d be living like animals.”
She felt as though someone had stopped crushing her neck. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “What you’d always wanted . . .”
“We’re not going back.” His voice was as crisp as frost. “We can’t. All the money’s gone.” He laughed, a sound like a dog snarling. “If only you knew what I had to go through to get that money, and now it’s all gone.”
He didn’t seem to be making much sense. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “But it’s like you just said. If we can’t stay here, we’ve got to go back.”
“No.” She’d never heard that tone of voice before; she wouldn’t have believed him capable of making such a sound. “We’re staying here, and if we’ve got to rough it, it won’t be the first time. Don’t you understand? The money’s gone.” He was shouting now, and she wanted to put distance between herself and him, but she was afraid of what he might do if she moved. “I can’t go back and get more; all that’s over and done with now. This is my last chance, so we’ve got to make it work. I owe it to them.”
She managed not to say anything; just keep quiet until he’d calmed down enough for her to get away. “You’re going to have to help me,” he said, quieter but no less intense. “I can handle Aidi and the others, but I need you to convince the women. If they agree to stay, it’ll be easier on the men.” (The men, she thought; he was thinking like a soldier now. How does a commanding officer get soldiers to launch a suicide attack, or hold an indefensible position? She couldn’t begin to imagine, but he knew.) “Talk to them,” he went on, “tell them it’s not so bad. Tell them we’ve been in worse situations before, and it’s not nearly as bad as it seems. Obviously it’s not going to be comfortable, but we’ll make it, I can guarantee that. You’ll talk to them, won’t you?”