by K. J. Parker
By the time he’d hauled himself out of the ditch and trudged back across the field, the crows were already starting to drop in and pitch again, as if nothing had happened and he hadn’t been there. That should have annoyed him, but this time he only shrugged and turned his back on them. There would, after all, be another day tomorrow.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day Poldarn could hardly move at all. From his hips to his knees, his legs ached unbearably, and he couldn’t straighten them without yelping with pain. One trip from the bedroom round the back of the house to the privy was enough to persuade him that the crows could wait a day or so. He staggered back into the house and leaned against the door frame, feeling profoundly unhappy.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Carey the field hand, bustling past with a small cider barrel tucked under his arm.
‘Done my legs in,’ Poldarn answered dolefully. ‘Six hours cramped up in a ditch’ll do that to you.’
Carey grinned. ‘Serves you right,’ he said. ‘Out enjoying yourself all day when the rest of us are working. Good day?’
Poldarn nodded. ‘Hundred and seventy-two. Only quit because I ran out of stones.’
‘Well, you must’ve saved a few for later. I was out there this morning and the whole field was black with the little buggers. Going out again later?’
‘Certainly not,’ Poldarn groaned. ‘I’m wounded in action, that means I get a day off. Otherwise, where’s the point?’
Carey grunted. ‘Soft, that’s what you are. Maybe you should try a day’s biscay-spitting, that’ll teach you a thing or two about really hurting.’
Poldarn made it back to his bed without falling over, though it was touch-and-go most of the way. Elja was in the bedroom, folding up the washing.
‘You can’t lie on the bed, I’ve just made it,’ she said. ‘You’ll make the room look scruffy.’
‘Go away,’ Poldarn replied, collapsing onto the bed in a barely controlled fall. ‘I want sympathy, not criticism.’
‘You poor thing,’ Elja said briskly. ‘If you’re going to lie there, take your boots off.’
‘Have a heart,’ Poldarn whimpered. ‘It took me half an hour to get them on.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s your own silly fault for crouching in a muddy ditch,’ she sighed. ‘You can’t expect sympathy if you crock yourself when you’re out having fun.’
Poldarn pulled a face. ‘It wasn’t fun, it was serious work. You should see the damage they’ve done already, bloody things.’
‘Sure,’ Elja replied. ‘I think you’re cruel, picking on a load of defenceless birds.’
Poldarn straightened out his legs and closed his eyes. ‘Please go away,’ he said. ‘As a special favour to me.’
‘Just my luck,’ Elja said with an exaggerated sniff. ‘I end up married to an old man who can’t sit in the sun all day without straining something. Fat lot of use you are to a growing girl.’
She left while he was still trying to think of an appropriate reply.
He closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep, but of course that didn’t work. It was gloomy and dark in the bedroom now that the sun was up; it would have been too dark to read even if he’d had a book, which he didn’t. He was too bored to stay still and his legs hurt too much to let him move. He longed for something to do – sewing shirts, or mending nets, or podding beans, anything useful that could be done with just the hands. Presumably if he summoned one of the women and ordered her to bring him a bucketful of apples to core and slice, she’d have to obey him, since he was the lord of Ciartanstead and his word was nominally law. Unfortunately he couldn’t think of any way of attracting attention. Alternatively, he could lie back and think up brilliant, far-reaching schemes and reforms and ways of doing things much more efficiently and productively than ever before, or astoundingly original plans for dealing with droughts, floods and infestations of rats, or an amazingly simple way of protecting the farm from the volcano. Or he could write a poem (in his head; no paper) or compose a song. Or he could count sheep jumping over a low wall.
‘Here you are.’ There was someone in the doorway, but he couldn’t see who it was from where he was lying. He tried to sit up but the angle was all wrong. ‘No, don’t get up,’ the voice went on. ‘Looks like you need your rest.’
He placed the voice; it was Egil, of all people. That in itself made him suspicious, in addition to the feeling of unease that his brother-in-law’s tone of voice inspired in him. ‘Sorry,’ he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. ‘I’ve strained my legs, and I can’t sit up.’
‘I heard.’ Egil appeared in front of him. ‘Crouching in a ditch all day, hardly surprising. I did something like that once: I was sitting out waiting for the geese to come in on the long estuary at Brayskillness. Nine hours on the mud flats, and when the buggers finally showed up, I got one shot at extreme range, and I missed. But archery was never my strong point.’
‘Nor mine,’ Poldarn said. ‘At least, I can’t remember ever trying it. Actually, I’m talking nonsense, for all I know I’m a crack shot. I should give it a try some time, it’d be a useful skill if I’m any good at it.’
Egil shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘You were bloody pathetic at it when you were younger, but you seem to have learned a whole lot of skills while you were away, so maybe archery was one of them.’ He shifted uncomfortably; he hadn’t come here to talk about archery or swap hunting stories.
‘Kind of you to drop by,’ Poldarn said. ‘You’ve no idea how boring it is lying here.’
‘Actually, I have,’ Egil said. ‘I broke my leg, years ago. Nearly went off my head, staring at the roof timbers hour after hour. In the end I used to lie there with my eyes shut, imagining stuff.’
Poldarn raised an eyebrow. ‘Stuff?’
Egil laughed, slightly off key. ‘Swordfights,’ he said, ‘horse races, quarterstaff bouts. And, um, stuff with girls. All sorts of things. It passed the time.’
‘I think I’ll stick with staring at the roof, thank you,’ Poldarn said. ‘Though there’s a botched lapjoint in the third rafter down that’s bugging the hell out of me; what I want to do most in the world is get a ladder and a hammer and chisel and tidy it up. Soon as I’m back on my feet, I’m going to do that, I swear.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ Egil said. ‘It’s nice to have a purpose in life. You must be wondering what the hell I’m doing here.’
Poldarn nodded. ‘Ever since we met you’ve done your best to stay out of my way,’ he said. ‘And you keep hinting that it’s because of some dreadful secret. I don’t suppose you’re here to let me in on it, are you?’
‘No.’ Egil shook his head. ‘And I think you just answered the question I came here to ask. Thanks.’
‘Hey.’ Egil was about to leave the room. ‘At least ask me the question.’
Egil frowned. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Someone told me Leith was here a day or so back. Is that right?’
‘Yes. How did you – I guess someone told you. Or something like that.’
‘Something like that. So he was here, then.’
‘Came and went. Stayed just long enough to be annoyingly cryptic, then slung his hook. Why, do you know him?’
‘I used to. But that was years ago. Look, I thought we had an understanding; you don’t want to know about the old days, and I don’t want to tell you.’
Poldarn dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘But Leith was something to do with it.’
‘Very much so,’ Egil said. ‘So, he came over here because he knew you were back—’
‘And he’d heard I’d lost my memory, but he wanted to make sure. Which he did. Then he went home. Simple as that.’
‘Fine. So you must’ve set his mind at rest.’
‘His mind, yes. Look, I’ve been thinking. This deadly secret, it must have been something I did. I’m starting to think I ought to know about it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I should. I’ve been second-guessing and third-guessing, I lie awak
e at nights trying to figure out what it could be, and it seems to me that it can’t have been all that bad, or they’d never have brought me home. Halder knew, didn’t he?’
‘Oh, Halder knew.’ Egil looked very thoughtful. ‘You know, if anybody’s to blame really, it’s him. Other people – well, they made mistakes, I think it’s fair enough to call it that – but Halder actually did a very bad thing, a wicked thing, and I’m positive he knew he was going to die soon afterwards and the truth would die with him. At least, that’s what he thought, because he didn’t know Leith and I were in on the secret too. But that doesn’t make it any better.’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘Of course not. If you could commit a crime, something really cruel and unspeakable, and you knew for a fact you’d never be found out, nobody’d even know the crime had been committed, it’d still be a crime. Wouldn’t it?’
Poldarn thought for a moment. ‘To be honest,’ he said, ‘I can’t think of a really terrible crime that nobody would notice. I mean, there’s got to be a victim or it isn’t a crime: you can’t blind someone or burn down his house without him realising what’s been done to him. Well, I suppose you could kill a lonely stranger, someone with no family or friends who’s just arrived in the district, so nobody apart from yourself knows he’s there. That’s not what happened, is it?’
Egil shook his head. ‘Nothing like that,’ he said. ‘In fact, that wouldn’t be such a bad crime, if you ask me, because someone like that – well, who cares? Apart from the stranger, of course; but if he’s got no family, nobody depending on him, then it’s not like it’s a great loss, is it? There’s nobody left to be affected by it.’
Poldarn’s eyes opened wide. ‘That’s a pretty cold-blooded way of looking at things, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Maybe.’ Egil sounded like he wasn’t bothered. ‘Truth is, it’s so unlikely and far-fetched, it’s hard to imagine what it’d be like. Everybody’s got family and friends somewhere, even that new friend of yours, the bear-hunter who got you out of the mud over at our place. Like, if I killed him tomorrow, you’d notice he wasn’t around any more, and if you found out I’d killed him, you’d be after me for revenge. And he’s as close as you’ll ever get to what you had in mind.’
‘True,’ Poldarn said. ‘But supposing I’d killed him that first day I met him, out on the moors.’
Egil grinned. ‘Before or after he saved you from the bear? No, think about it. If it was before, the bear would’ve got you. If it was afterwards, you’d have been too grateful to kill him. Like I said, that scenario of yours is just too improbable to be worth getting in a state over.’
‘All right.’ Poldarn straightened his right leg with a shudder of pain. ‘And you’re saying what I did was worse than that.’
Egil shook his head. ‘Certainly not. Like I said just now, it was more of a mistake than a crime, anyway.’
‘Fine. So what Halder did was worse than that.’
‘No, not really. Oh, it was a despicable thing to do, but nothing like killing someone. It wasn’t – well, active, if you see what I mean. There’s a difference, isn’t there? Between doing something bad and letting something bad happen?’
Poldarn decided to draw a bow at a venture. ‘Like you did, you mean.’
‘Like I did, yes. Except I just stood back and didn’t interfere; what Halder did was worse than that. Except he thought nobody would ever know, so it’d all be all right. And in the end, it’s been a blessing. Well, for a lot of people it has. Me, for one.’
‘Really.’ Poldarn scowled. ‘You know, ever since I got here it’s been like this. Everybody knows everything, except me. I’m getting bloody sick of it.’
But Egil shook his head. ‘Don’t be so damned selfish,’ he said. ‘It’s just like your case, exactly.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Think about it. Suppose there was a really bad man, a truly evil man who did terrible things; and one day he can’t remember who he is or what he’s done, and for ages he just wanders through his life, doing nobody any harm; and he comes to a place where there’s no scope for his particular line of wrongdoing, and he just settles down and lives a fairly normal life, even does a bit of good when it’s needed. And suppose where he’s come to, nobody knows what he did, or nobody cares, or they wouldn’t think what he did was wrong even if they knew about it. So: is he still a bad man? Was he ever a bad man, if nobody knows about it, nobody at all? Suppose the past is just something you can break or burn—’
‘Like a book,’ Poldarn interrupted.
‘If you say so,’ Egil replied. ‘But suppose you can get rid of the past so it no longer exists. After all, the past is just memories. Suppose you can wipe them all out, wash them away like a stain in a shirt, so even you don’t know any more. There’s no past, just the present and the future. And the bad man’s not bad any more, is he?’
Poldarn thought for a long time. ‘I guess that depends,’ he said. ‘If he’s really a bad man, won’t he find a way to do evil again? Because it’s his nature.’
Egil shook his head. ‘But not necessarily,’ he said. ‘Suppose you were in a country where there’s no such thing as property: if you want something you just take it and nobody gives a damn. You couldn’t be a thief in that country, even if you tried. Or suppose there’s a country where crows are sacred to the gods, and the worst crime is to kill one. There’s a man who loves to kill crows; but he lives here, where crows are pests and we’ve got to kill them, or else they’ll peck up the crops. He won’t be doing evil, he’ll be a useful member of society.’
‘Maybe.’ Poldarn looked away, up at the roof. ‘But he kills crows because he likes killing, not because they damage the crops. That’s evil.’
‘That’s his business,’ Egil replied gently. ‘And the more he tries to do evil, the more good he does. There’s no harm done.’
‘But he knows,’ Poldarn insisted.
‘So what?’ Egil said. ‘He knows he’s trying to do evil, but no evil actually happens. What’s inside his head doesn’t matter, any more than a wiped-out past matters.’ He looked around, and saw the axe head Poldarn had found in the muddy water of the ditch; it was lying on the table, beside the bed. ‘All right, look,’ he went on. ‘You found this yesterday, right?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘You told someone, so I know. It’s an axe, right? And you found it in the mud and brought it home. Put an edge on it, it’ll do a useful job of work. Now let’s say it got there because someone used it for a murder and dumped it there; but that was all a hundred years ago, nobody remembers the murdered man or anything like that. It’s still a useful tool. Or should it go in a crucible and get melted down? And if you did that, would it be right to use the metal to make something else, or is it accursed for all time? Shouldn’t we take it up to the top of the volcano and throw it in there, just to be sure?’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ Poldarn said. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve got your own reasons for not wanting me to know what happened.’
‘Of course I do,’ Egil said angrily. ‘You come back here, after all those years. You know what I thought when I heard what Halder had done? I was going to take my axe and smash your head in, because I’d rather be put to death for murder than let it happen. Then it turns out you’ve lost your memory, and suddenly it’s all right again, I don’t have to die after all. Can you imagine how wonderful that felt, being reprieved from having to kill someone, from having everybody think I was some kind of vicious wild animal, crazy in the head, couldn’t be allowed to live? I’d have done it, you can be absolutely sure about that.’
‘Really,’ Poldarn said quietly. ‘But when I was stranded in the mudslide at Colscegsford, you risked your life to help me. If I’d died, all your troubles would’ve been over.’
‘Fuck you,’ Egil shouted. ‘What sort of bastard do you take me for? I couldn’t stand by and watch someone die if I could help it.’
‘Even so,’ Poldar
n said, icily rational, ‘someone else could have gone. It wasn’t your special assignment, keeping me alive.’
‘I happened to be closest,’ Egil said, clamping his hands to the side of his head. ‘It was my job. Don’t you understand us at all yet? There’s a job to be done, whoever’s closest does it. We don’t have any choice in the matter.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I’d have been as happy as a lamb in springtime if you’d drowned in the mud. Or if it had been me, come to that. But it didn’t turn out that way, that’s all.’ He walked over to the door, then looked back. ‘You want to know my idea of a really evil man, someone so evil he could never be anything else? All right, I’ll tell you. It’s a man who’s so selfish he’d follow up his curiosity without caring a damn who had to pay the price. Do you understand that?’
Poldarn nodded. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Thank you for explaining it to me. Now I know.’ In spite of everything, he couldn’t help grinning. ‘Like I keep saying, if people would just explain things, it’d make life so much easier.’
It took five days for Poldarn’s legs to recover; five days during which the roof timbers of the bedroom at Ciartanstead grew steadily less and less interesting as the hours ground by. Every morning someone would drop by and assure him that it would be disastrous and irredeemable folly if he got up and walked about before his strained muscles were completely healed beyond any shadow of a doubt, and since they seemed to know ever so much more about the subject than he did, he had no choice but to go along with their advice. On the sixth day he got the same lecture, this time from Elja herself, but the thought of another minute, let alone another day, staring at that bodged lapjoint was more than he could bear. Far better to risk ending up crippled for life than certain death by tedium.