by K. J. Parker
Monach took a deep breath. 'So she was a fraud, then.'
'Beyond doubt. I didn't say anything, of course; she'd done me no harm, and nobody would've believed me, in any case. And it didn't matter. If the god is genuine, what difference does it make if the priest isn't what he claims to be? Or even if he doesn't believe.'
'Quite,' the brother muttered. 'All right, you've explained why the priestess was a fraud. Why was the god genuine?'
Another laugh. 'I thought I'd told you that. Because he raised the dead, healed the sick, made thunder and forecast the future.' A pause. 'The thunder could have been a fraud, of course, because it is possible to manufacture thunder artificially. But it could just as easily have been the real thing.'
Monach thought about that for a moment. 'The same could be true of the healing,' he said. 'Perhaps the god wasn't a god, just a good doctor.'
'What an intelligent young man you are,' the voice said. 'But not in this case, since he didn't give them a medicine or examine them, or do any of the things doctors do.'
'Ah,' Monach interrupted. 'Then how can you be sure it was the god who healed them, if he didn't do anything?'
Another scrape, as if someone was shifting his weight in a chair with one shrunken leg. 'Because when he arrived in town there were four men and two women dying of marsh fever-which, as I'm sure you know, is always fatal if it lasts beyond the second week; and during the night he was here all four of them sweated out the fever and woke up the next morning, and now they're fully recovered. And Lassie Nurico's daughter died just after they arrived, and Pons Quevi a couple of hours later; they were quite dead, I saw their bodies myself and found no pulse or signs of life, and they were taken over to the Fennas' barn and laid out for burial. And in the morning they were alive again, and they're still alive now. What more proof do you need?'
Monach rubbed his chin. 'There are other possible explanations,' he said.
'Of course.' The voice clicked its tongue. 'But Seuro Eliman's boy climbed up into the rafters of the tower courtyard roof and watched the god most of the night, and he told me the god sniffed six times and sneezed twice; and if you've heard or read the stories about Poldarn you'll know that when he cures disease he sniffs, and when he raises the dead he sneezes. And I heard that when I was a boy, so it's not something made up after the fact. As for the prophecy, the priestess said he had business in Josequin, and Josequin was burned to the ground.'
'Coincidence?' Monach suggested.
A laugh, which turned into a dry, painful-sounding cough. 'Veusel says in the second book of his commentaries that five or more consecutive coincidences may be construed as proof of a doubted or disputed proposition. You can't argue with Veusel, he's been part of the syllabus for two hundred years.'
Monach, who'd suffered painfully from Veusel's commentaries in his youth, remembered just in time that he wasn't a monk any more. 'Who's Veusel?' he asked.
Silence. The sound of fingernails tapping on the arm of a chair, as Monach remembered that although he wasn't a monk, he was an enthusiastic amateur scholar. Damn, he thought.
'So, yes,' the voice resumed, 'you could say it was all coincidence, and you could say it was a man and a woman in the cart, not the god. Of course, I find it easier to believe because I saw him and you didn't. But I can't show you what I saw, I can only tell you various facts and leave you to draw your own conclusions. What else would you like to know?'
Monach was getting cramp from sitting on the table for so long. 'What did they look like?' he asked.
'The woman,' the voice said, 'was about medium height for a Torcean, with a narrow face, pointed nose and chin, high cheekbones, dark brown hair; I wasn't close enough to see the colour of her eyes, but they were dark too. She was wearing a dark blue dress, probably from Torcea; I don't know anything about women's fashions so I can't give you any technical details-it's a sad gap in my knowledge. I believe that you can tell how old a dress is and where it came from if you know about such things, and of course that could be useful in a case like this.'
'Thank you,' Monach replied. 'And what about the man? I mean the god.'
'He looked like Poldarn,' the voice replied. 'Just like he does in all the statues and paintings and ivory carvings and engravings on the backs of mirrors. Which reminds me, going back to the question of proof. Jira Fider, the miller's wife, had a gold ring that belonged to her great-grandmother. She took it off to wash some shirts-the hot water makes her fingers swell, and it was a tight fit at the best of times-and put it down on the step while she was working; a black bird dropped out of the plum tree, picked the ring up in its beak and flew away. She assumed it was a jackdaw, but for some reason they've never been common in these parts. That was the morning of the day they came. Coincidence, of course.'
Monach rubbed his eyes. 'When you say he looked like Poldarn-'
'The cart,' the voice continued, 'was just a cart, and if you can find anybody who can describe it in any detail I'll give you six quarters. All carts that are just carts look the same, you see. Fortunately I don't believe that there's such a thing as just a cart, so I took a careful look. It was a short two-horse back-sprung haulier's cart, painted grey a long time ago and neglected since, with one grab-handle missing from the box and a patch welded on to the front offside tyre. I think that's all the facts I can remember. If you like we can talk a bit more about metaphysics, or I can tell you some stories about my life as a soldier; you could go back and check the references, to give you an idea of the quality of my memory and powers of observation. I'd rather not, though, since you might use them to work out who I could be; somebody important who was at the same battles as I was. Purely by coincidence, you understand.'
'That's all right, really,' Monach said. 'Besides, if I believed you were something other than an ordinary retired soldier, I think I know who I'd reckon you are. And if you were him-'
'Which I'm not.'
'Oh, I believe you. But if that person was still alive and living in obscurity in a village somewhere, I can see why he'd rather nobody knew who he really was.'
'So can I,' Jolect replied. 'Actually, I knew him once. Quite well. He might have amounted to something, you know, if it hadn't been for General Cronan and a good deal of bad luck.'
Monach smiled. 'I think so too,' he said. 'Thank you for your help.'
'My pleasure. You can give me a small amount of money if it makes you feel any better. Money isn't actually worth anything here, but one or two of the grander farmers' wives collect it, to show how sophisticated they are, and usually they'll trade food and firewood for it. Your hostess, for instance.'
'She's one of the grander farmers' wives?'
'Nearest thing Cric has to royalty,' the voice replied. 'I've heard it said she's got a pair of shoes she's never even worn once.'
Once it got around the village that he'd spent an hour talking to the old man, Monach found it much easier to get people to talk to him, and he spent the evening trudging from house to house, asking the same questions and getting roughly the same answers. He found Pons Quevi, who confirmed that he'd been dead but couldn't remember anything about it that was worth listening to, and Seuro Eliman's boy, who'd watched Poldarn from the roof, and various others who'd been sick or thought they'd been sick, or who remembered thinking they saw strange blue glowing lights hovering over the god's head, or snakes that slithered under the cart while the priestess was meditating. It was good corroborative evidence, but since he hadn't really doubted the accuracy of what the old man had told him, he felt he needn't really have bothered. When it was dark he went back to the Lefit house and was shown a pile of old rugs he was to be allowed to sleep on, in the corner near the economical fire. He lay for a while, listening, trying to match the various snores to the members of the household, wondering if the old man really was General Allectus (who'd died, no question about that; but so had Pons Quevi, and he'd talked to him for half an hour), until his eyes closed, and -And opened again, and he saw a crow sitting on his chest,
its round black eyes filled with disgust and contempt. In its beak was the gold ring he wore round his neck on a chain (since when did I wear a gold ring round my neck on a chain? Since this dream started, presumably) and it jerked its neck, trying to pull it free. He felt the chain tweak the back of his neck and tried to lift his hand to shoo the bird away; it took an unexpected amount of effort. The crow let go of the ring and pulled itself into the air with its broad heavy wings, squawking bitterly.
He was out in the open somewhere, lying on his back in deep, sticky mud. Next to him there was a dead body; lots of dead bodies, soldiers. He sat up, pushing away the surge of panic, and looked round to see where he was.
He found that he was looking at the bottom of a combe, with a rain-swollen river running down the middle. The water had slopped out on to the grass on either side, and where he was lying was churned up into a filthy mess of mud and brown standing pools. In the mud lay the dead bodies, some on their backs, some face down and almost submerged. He was filthy himself, with a tidemark of black mud a hand's span above both knees, and he was missing one boot, presumably sucked off when he'd stumbled into a boggy patch.
I can't remember anything, he realised. What a horrible feeling, thank God this is only a dream. He forced himself to stand up, in spite of violent protests from his head and knees. That gave him a better view, a broader perspective, but still none of it made any sense.
He looked down at the dead man lying next to where he'd been, trying to read him through the mud. A soldier, because he was wearing armour (boiled leather cuirass and pauldrons, cheap and cheerful and fairly efficient so long as you fight in the dry; over that a rough wool cloak so sodden with blood and dirty water that it could've been any colour; trousers the same, the toes of the boots just sticking up out of the mud); cause of death was either the big puncture wound in the pit of the stomach or the deep slash that started under the right ear and carried on an inch or so into the leather of the cuirass, just above the collarbone. His face was just an open mouth and two open eyes, with drying mud slopped incongruously on the eyeballs, but whether it was a friend or an enemy he couldn't say.
Yes, it's only a dream; but if I've lost my memory and forgotten who I am, maybe I won't be able to get back out of it when it's supposed to be over. How will I know how to find my body again when it wakes up? I could be stranded here for ever.
He was about to yell, 'Hello, is anybody there,' as loud as he could when he stopped and realised there had been a battle here; what if someone did hear him and turned out to be the enemy? Hopeless, he stood staring at the mud and the bodies, horribly aware that he hadn't the faintest idea what he should do. Then the crow, which had been circling patiently, glided down towards him on the slight breeze, turned into it to brake and pitched on the face of one of the soldiers, and (because it was a dream) melted away into the wound as the soldier sat up and wiped his own brains out of his eyes.
'Hello,' the soldier said.
'You're dead,' Monach replied.
The soldier nodded. 'Though a tactful person would've found a more roundabout way of telling me. Still, you've just had a very nasty bump on the head, bad enough to make you start seeing things, so I suppose I can make allowances. Yes, I'm dead, but so was Pons Quevi. Allow me to introduce myself. My name's Poldarn.'
'Oh,' Monach said.
'Just "Oh". Not "Pleased to meet you, I've come a long way". And I suppose a little respect, or just a tiny bit of worship-no, apparently not.' He grinned lopsidedly, the stretching of the muscles of his face further widening the deep cut that ran from eyesocket to chin. 'It's all right, I can make allowances for mortal frailty. You were looking for me. What can I do for you?'
Monach took a step backwards. 'With-respect,' he mumbled, 'I wasn't actually looking for you-not the real you, I mean. I was sent to find out about someone going round in a cart saying they're you. That's all.'
'But the someone in the cart is me,' Poldarn replied. 'Will I do? Or are you going to insist that I produce the cart and show you the patch on the tyre? I can do that if you like, but it'd be a lot of extra work, and I'm rather pushed for time as it is. I can be in two places at the same time but my mortal counterparts can't. So we can skip the cart then, can we?'
'What? Oh, yes, of course.'
'Thank you. So, let's get down to cases. What do you want to know?'
Monach took another step backwards, and felt something solid under his heel. He didn't want to think about what it might be. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I can't have explained terribly well. It's not you I need to find out about; we know all about you, back at the order.'
Poldarn looked intrigued. 'All about me?'
Monach nodded. 'Yes. I looked you up before I left.'
'So you know all about me too?'
'Yes. Well, not all, obviously. But everything I needed to know-'
Poldarn smiled. 'Oh, I agree, we can skip all the irrelevant detail. Go on, then. I can't wait to hear all the things I need to know about myself.'
Monach took a deep breath, and resisted the urge to back away further. 'I'm sorry,' he repeated. 'I really am expressing myself very badly indeed. My mission-I was sent to find out about two people in a cart, who passed through a village called Cric-'
'Cric' Poldarn dipped his head. 'Thanks, I'll make a note of it. Is that far from here?'
'I don't know. I don't know where this is.'
'Neither do I,' Poldarn replied. 'Please bear in mind,' he added, pulling blood-matted hair out of the hole in his temple, 'you aren't the only one who's had a nasty bump on the head. Still, now at least I've got somewhere to head for. Any idea where I go from there?'
'Josequin,' Monach answered without thinking.
'Ah, got you. So Josequin's next, after Cric. I have an idea what I've got to do, you see, it's just the order I'm supposed to do it in that's a little vague.'
Monach felt as if he'd just done something seriously wrong, though he wasn't sure what it could be. 'Josequin was burned down,' he said, 'a week or so ago. Everybody was killed, there were no survivors. The god in the cart predicted it; that's why I was sent to find out-' He hesitated. The god was looking at him.
'News to me,' Poldarn said. 'If a city the size of Josequin was burned down, I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about it. But anyway, thank you. It's just as well someone's seen fit to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing, and where.'
Then Monach realised what he'd done wrong. Josequin hadn't been destroyed yet; the god in the cart hadn't yet been to Cric. 'Just a moment,' he said.
'Let's get this straight,' Poldarn went on, bending down and picking a sword up out of the mud. It was a backsabre, like the one Cronan found in the wood, or the ones hidden in the trunk in the Falx house. 'From here I go to Cric. In Cric I predict the fall of Josequin; then I go to Josequin. What happens after that?'
'No,' Monach said (and he remembered who he was, and that he had family in Josequin). 'It doesn't have to happen like that. If you don't go to Cric, maybe Josequin won't get burned down.'
Poldarn nodded. 'And we couldn't have that, could we? Thank you, you've been incredibly helpful. Someone like me needs someone like you to keep things on track. If ever I need another priest, I'll definitely bear you in mind.' He wiped the mud off the sabre and hung it from his belt by the pommel-hook. 'Where do I go after Josequin?' he asked. 'Let's see, Sansory would be the logical choice, it's nearer than Mael. Or better still, Deymeson, for a wide variety of excellent reasons. I assume you know, since you did all that background reading.'
The weight of what he'd done made Monach stagger, and his hand dropped instinctively to his sword hilt. 'You mustn't go to Josequin,' he said. 'Thousands of people live there.'
Poldarn was smiling. 'Not for much longer. You do know who I am, don't you? Or didn't the books mention it?'
Grip the mouth of the scabbard with the left hand and turn it ninety degrees to the left. Place the side of the left thumb against the hilt and press it gently forward to free the sword in th
e scabbard. Lay the back of the right hand on the grip. 'I can't let you go to Josequin,' Monach said. 'My family lives there.'
'You don't know who I am,' Poldarn said sadly. 'What a pity, I was hoping you could tell me. But everybody I meet who knows me seems to die. Mostly I kill them. You've no idea how frustrating that is; and I'm only doing my job. It's not as if I have any choice in the matter.' He took a step forward; the middle finger of his right hand touched the pommel-hook of the backsabre. 'I go where people ask for me,' he said. 'It's not as if I'm not invited. Now get out of my way.'
'No.'
Another step forward. One more after that would bring him inside Monach's circle, the distance around him that he could reach with his sword from the draw. He'd been trained for twenty years to draw and strike as soon as the enemy came into his circle, to the point where the action became automatic, involuntary. It wasn't as if he'd have any choice in the matter.
'You were the one who came looking for me,' Poldarn pointed out gently. 'You asked for me.'
Poldarn lifted his foot, crossed the circumference of the invisible circle. Flip the right hand over and take a firm hold on the grip. Draw; right hand and right foot together, step into the enemy's circle as you cut. A brother of the order who's been trained in the draw need fear nothing on earth, there's nothing, not even a god, he can't kill.
Poldarn stepped backwards and dropped the backsabre, as Monach flicked the blood off the blade; the dead god was still standing when the ricasso clicked back into the mouth of the scabbard. Then he slumped and fell, splashing Monach's face with mud. The crow spread its wings and flew slowly away, as somewhere behind him Father Tutor shook his head and sighed. 'You've got to stop doing things like that,' he said. 'You're becoming a liability to the order. I told you to find him, not-'