by K. J. Parker
He heard her say nothing, louder than shouting. Well, he thought, glad I managed to live down to your expectations. He wanted to hit her for putting up with him, but instead he thumbed open the tinderbox lid, prodded down the crunchy dry moss, let the lid flop shut and turned the handle. Turned and turned and turned, but couldn’t hear the tiny crackle and fizz of the tinder catching. Turned harder.
“Shit,” he said. “I broke the handle.”
“Let me—”
“No.” Once upon a time, he’d believed that she loved him; but she must’ve been lying, because who could possibly love a clown like Muri Achaiois? “It’s all right, I’m perfectly capable . . .” He felt his arm swat against the lamp-oil jug, felt it topple, tried to grab it, missed, heard it smash, splat; and, in that small, frozen second of sober perception, realised he’d dropped the tinderbox, and that he had managed to get it going, after all.
A white spear of flame shot up from between his feet, sprawled up his legs and licked at his face like a bad dog; he jumped backwards before it could ignite him, landed badly, lost his feet and fell backwards on to his bum, jarring his spine and rattling his teeth.
“It’s all right,” he shouted, as the flame swelled and blossomed, hiding her from him, and she screamed. It was all right, because he knew what to do, in this as in all genuine emergencies. He scrambled to his feet - the flame was impossibly tall, licking its sharp yellow tongue against the bare thatch - and lunged at the fire, eager to club it to death and stamp on it and defeat it, and stood on his trailing untied bootlace and came down on his nose like a hammer on the head of a nail, and the darkness came and took him away for a while.
Then he was awake, sitting in a chair, with a pounding headache and a horrible stinging pain where the air was eating into his raw cheek, and he could smell the foul stink of burned hair, and for some reason Aidi Proiapsen was there, standing over him, looking down at him as though he was all the leading problems and issues of the day. So he assumed he must be dreaming, until Aidi leant in closer and said, “Muri?”
(Which was the first thing Aidi, or anyone from the old days, had said to him for three years. He blinked. He had an idea he was missing the point.)
“It’s all right,” Aidi said. “You’re all right. You’ve had a bang on the head and your face is a bit burned, but nothing much at all. Other than that, you’re fine.”
Aidi, you’re such a piss-poor liar. “What happened?” he asked.
Aidi looked blank for a moment. “There was a fire,” he said. “At your place. Don’t you remember?”
Then, suddenly, he remembered. He felt his stomach lurch at the shame, the total humiliation: Muri Achaiois, who once sacked the citadels of the enemy, burns down his own stupid little house. Of course, Iero would leave him now, and she’d tell everybody why—
“Where’s Iero?” he asked, and there was a split second before Aidi answered, and by the time he spoke there was no need.
Utterly ridiculous, of course; because he was the one who’d fallen on his face and knocked himself out cold, been lying there a great inert lump on the floor of the burning house, inches from the heart of the fire, and he’d made it out alive (death doesn’t apply to A Company), and his hangover hurt worse than his burns; and she’d been the one who died. That wasn’t just ridiculous, it was deliberately, gratuitously insulting.
The smoke killed her, Aidi was saying; you were right down on the ground, and that’s where the air is, in a fire. Standing up, you’re in the smoke. But of course, she hadn’t known that, so by the time the neighbours . . .
He wasn’t interested, but it was all he could think to ask: “How did I get here?”
Aidi paused again. “One of your neighbours remembered that I know you,” he said; a curious choice of words. “So they sent for me, and I had you fetched back here.”
And here he was; but Aidi’s lying, he thought. I always know when Aidi’s lying. It unsettled him, enough to cut through all the mess and junk lying on his mind and reach down to the basic soldier instincts, danger and fight and escape. He noticed in passing that Aidi was directly between him and the door, which was shut and bolted.
“I want to go home,” he said.
“I’m afraid there’s not much left,” Aidi said. “They did what they could, but once it’d got into the thatch . . .”
“I want to go home,” he repeated, and tried to stand up, and just about managed it. He noticed that both his feet were bare.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Aidi’s face was completely frozen. “Please, Muri, just stay put for now. You need to rest. That bang on the head you took . . .”
Bad lie; poor quality throughout. He knew all about bangs on the head, the sort that could kill you and the sort that just gave you a headache. “Aidi,” he said.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here for now,” Aidi said, and his voice was cold and filled with self-hate, and Muri remembered that Aidi was, among other things, a magistrate.
“Oh,” he said.
Aidi closed his eyes, then opened them again. “It’s her family,” he said. “They’ve filed a complaint. Apparently the neighbours heard some things . . .”
(Drunken Muri Achaiois crashing about; glass breaking . . .)
“Oh,” he repeated.
By now Aidi was looking desperate, as though he was the wanted man frantic to escape. “You really do want to stay here,” he was saying. “Come on, Muri, you know what they’re like, better than I do. If I let you leave this house, they’ll be after you with a rope. If you stay here, they won’t dare try anything. It’s just till everybody cools down.” Please, Muri, he didn’t add. Aidi Proiapsen didn’t plead, not out loud, and to anybody who knew him well, he couldn’t lie worth spit.
Later there was an inquest, Coroner Proiapsen presiding. Allegations of culpable negligence amounting to manslaughter were raised by the deceased’s relatives, but dismissed as not proven. An open verdict was returned.
Thouridos Alces was at the inquest. Kudei Gaeon didn’t attend; it was a busy time on the farm, and he couldn’t get away. Muri lost his job at the sawmill, and spent the next few months sleeping in fallen-down barns and sheds. Aidi told Alces he’d offered him money, a job or both, but Muri hadn’t been interested.
It was while Muri was sleeping rough and begging or stealing his living that his wife’s family made their move. They’d hired six men, ex-soldiers, nominally for the apple-picking; there were also her three brothers, her father, two uncles and two cousins. They armed themselves with hand-axes, knives, billhooks and a scythe blade, and tracked him to a charcoal-burner’s camp where one of the uncles knew the gang master, who arranged for the rest of the burners to be somewhere else, and for a gallon of strong cider to be left lying about where it could easily be found. He also gathered up all the axes, saws, hooks, mauls, froes, hammers and other edged and striking tools and hid them in the bed of a wagon, so that when the search party found Muri asleep under a tree, there were no convenient weapons of necessity available to him, and he had to make do with a stick. He did just fine.
Two of the hired men, one brother and both uncles got away, all of them in more or less of a mess. Muri threw the others on the fire when he’d finished with them, and some of the charcoal-burners later claimed that they could smell the bodies burning half a mile away. Then he sat down under his tree and went back to sleep.
Aidi woke him up some time later. He opened his eyes and yawned. “Hello,” he said. “Come to arrest me?”
“Don’t be bloody stupid, Muri.” Aidi was scowling at him, at his gashed face and bloodstained fingers. “Obviously it was self-defence. Even you wouldn’t pick a fight with thirteen men.”
He smiled. Aidi had always had that knack, of getting it right and then spoiling it, and not realising. “You know all about it, then.”
Aidi nodded. “I heard about what they were planning to do. I came as soon—”
“Thank you, Aidi,” Muri said.
“I was going to try and stop it,” Aidi said, his school-prefect voice.
“Oh well. It’s the thought that counts.”
Aidi was rubbing his knuckles with his thumb, a danger signal from way back. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“So what were you planning on doing?”
“Not sure.” The big, slow shrug. “Haven’t decided. I could read for the bar, I suppose, or try the diplomatic corps, or there’s always architecture, or the priesthood. Or I could run away and join a circus. What do you think, Aidi?”
Aidi looked at him, then turned and started to walk away. “Goodbye, Muri,” he said, over his shoulder.
He walked five yards, but nothing. He kept walking, slowing his pace just a little. Ten yards, fifteen. He wondered how far Muri would let him go before calling him back. Twenty. He nearly stopped. Of course Muri would call him back. Muri was weak; in the final analysis he was one of life’s followers, a great man to have at your side or watching your back, but a born side-kick. He’d worshipped Nuctos, then Teuche, and now he’d be drawn, like filings to a magnet, and Aidi Proiapsen would take him on and look after him, and that was how it should be. One word would do it, and now he’d gone thirty yards. Once again he very nearly stopped, but he couldn’t do that.
Fine, he thought, as he walked back to town. He’ll come, tomorrow or the next day, once he’s pulled himself together. And (ten yards further on) if he doesn’t, if he’s determined to be difficult, I’ll just have to go and fetch him, won’t I? It’s not like Muri Achaiois will ever be hard to find.
Five days later, he was in his office checking bills of lading when the boy told him Thouridos Alces was outside waiting to see him.
“What the hell did you do to Muri?” Fly snapped at him before he could open his mouth.
“Me? I didn’t do anything. What are you . . . ?”
(Fly had changed the most of all of them, he thought: thinner, slower, edgier. He could imagine walking into a room full of people and not immediately noticing Fly was there.)
“He’s gone,” Fly said angrily. “Gone off somewhere.”
Aidi frowned. “Big deal. Off somewhere’s been his official address for years.”
“On a ship,” Fly said, and Aidi felt like he’d been slapped. “Someone I know saw him get on a ship, day before yesterday.”
“Going where?”
Fly shrugged. “No idea. He wasn’t paying attention, he said, just happened to recognise him, and then mentioned it to me in passing when I ran into him just now.”
Aidi scowled, as if tightening the focus of his mind with his eyebrows. “All right,” he said. “I can find out which ships were in that day and where they were going.”
“Shut up, Aidi,” Fly said.
He hadn’t been expecting that.
“I thought you wanted me to—”
Fly turned his head away, a typical Alces give-me-strength gesture. “It’s a bit late for taking charge now, Aidi,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Suddenly Fly seemed to have lost interest. “I heard about what he did to the lynch mob,” he said. “He’s not in trouble over that, is he?”
“Self-defence,” Aidi replied. “I told him that.”
“So that’s not the reason, then.” Fly pulled over a stool and perched on it, precisely, like an angel on the head of a pin. “What did you say to him?”
“Nothing. I asked him what he was going to do.”
“And?”
Aidi shook his head. “I was going to . . . well, I don’t know. I’d have put him back on his feet, if only he’d asked. I didn’t think he’d just go.”
Fly sighed, a long, weary getting rid of breath. “See what you can find out,” he said. “If you can trace him, I’ll write to him. Don’t suppose it’d do any good, but you never know.” He stood up: a short, thin, worried man who looked older than he was. “Well,” he said, “I won’t hold you up any longer. You know where I’m living now.”
Aidi realised he didn’t. That made Fly smile.
“The old Kouroi house on the Ropewalk,” he said. “I took the lease. Going to start up a fencing school.”
Aidi frowned. “Are you sure that’s a—?”
“No, not really.” Fly grinned at him. “But the money’s run out and I need to earn a living, and I have absolutely no useful skills whatsoever. Enyo’s right behind me, of course. Enyo,” he repeated. “My wife.”
“Yes, I know,” before he realised Fly was teasing him. “How is she, by the way?”
“Depressed,” Fly replied. “Worried about money. Thought she was marrying a rich man. Well, she did. But I spent it all.” He grinned again. “She thinks I did it just to spite her. I think she may be right. Thanks for your time, Aidi. Let me know if you find out anything.”
When he’d gone, Aidi went upstairs, lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. Command, he thought; being in charge, being responsible. He mused for a while on the nature of command, and how it was transmitted, outside of a formal structure. In the beginning (once the officer had been killed; and he’d never been in charge anyway, not of them) it had been Nuctos, by light of nature. There had been no need to choose him, in the same way that nobody chooses the sun as their principal source of light. Then Nuctos had died (he thought about that; moved on) and immediately Teuche had taken charge; like water flowing into the gap when you pull a rock out of a river bed. They hadn’t discussed it or voted on it; there had been no interregnum. Then Teuche stayed on when they came home, and . . . He sat up and rubbed his eyelids. A Company couldn’t exist without a leader, just as you couldn’t have shadows without light. He’d assumed that he was the leader, had been since they got back, because he’d settled down and got on with things and made money and succeeded, while the other two (Kudei didn’t count) had gone on a sort of extended R&R, time off for bad behaviour. But that hadn’t, shouldn’t have altered the fact that he, Aidi Proiapsen, was in charge; and once they’d finished messing around and got it out of their systems, he’d have fallen them in, taken charge, led them . . .
Apparently not. He could see it now, looking back after the event. Muri Achaiois had got himself in trouble while on leave, and instead of standing in front of him while he was down, ready to demolish anybody who so much as scowled at his fallen comrade, Aidi Proiapsen had arrested him. Not, he decided, what Nuctos or Teuche would have done. No; his first thought, when they’d brought Muri to his house on the night of the fire, was I’m a magistrate, I can’t just . . .
Now look what you’ve done, he said bitterly to himself. The end of A Company; in other words, the end of the world. Suppose Muri were to die abroad; the thought made him shudder. Or not even that; suppose he just stayed away, untraceable. He composed his report. Command passed to Major Aidi Proiapsen, who failed in his duty, whereupon the company disbanded. It is the finding of this committee that Major Proiapsen is entirely deficient in leadership and unfitted to hold a commission in this service . . .
A month later, he got some news. Muri Achaiois had taken a ship to the mainland, where he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to re-enlist. Since then, he’d dropped out of sight and nobody knew where he was. So Aidi wrote to Fly (the old Kouroi house was just down the road; he could see it from his bedroom window) and got no answer; and six months later, someone happened to mention that Muri Achaiois was back in Faralia, working at the tannery, of all places. He made a mental note to go and see him sometime, but never actually got round to it.
“Apology accepted,” Kunessin said.
There was a moment (brief as the interval between pulling a rock out of a river bed and the water rushing in to fill the hole) when Aidi was so angry he could have killed Teuche, or at least tried to. Instead, he breathed out long and slow, like a man laying down his weapons . . .
Laying down his weapons, all but one. That one was still there, concealed, ready for immediate use, but only if the situation escalated to the point where it was worth destroying t
he whole world just in order to have won. It had crossed his mind when Teuche said what he’d just said that the point had finally come; he’d considered it seriously, gone so far as to apply the relevant criteria, found that they didn’t in fact apply in this instance, although there had indeed been a case to answer.
He knew they were all looking at him. He chose to ignore it; a bit like ignoring the sea when you’re drowning.
“Right,” Kunessin was saying, “I think that’s everything. Let’s have some dinner.” He was controlling the space, the way he always did, the way the moon draws the tides. By my sufferance, Aidi thought; by my indulgence, my permission. I could smash him with a few words. But he knew perfectly well that he wasn’t going to, not today, not until and unless the moment came when he had no choice; no, belay that, don’t lie to yourself. Until and unless the moment comes when I want to.
Old story, halfway house between history and myth, about a prince who hated his elder brother so much, he betrayed the kingdom to the enemy rather than let his brother take the throne. To get to that point, Aidi had always thought, must’ve taken a massive dose of motivation. Himself, he couldn’t see it; because what would be the point?
The night after Teuche came home, he’d actually cried, great big wet girlie tears, because Teuche was back and A Company would be saved and restored, and his dereliction of duty hadn’t been fatal after all. Actually cried, which was pathetic, but he hadn’t been able to help it. But even then, while the hot tears were rolling down his cheeks (shameful as pissing himself), he’d instinctively checked to see that the weapon was still there, still handy, ready for use at a moment’s notice. Of course he’d never use it, never want to use it. But it was nice to know it was there.