Shadow s-1

by K. J. Parker

  Having nothing better to do, he looked up 'Poldarn' in the index. There was one listing, page 474; he flicked through, and read: An obscure southern god, now neglected. Iconography: a crow with a ring in its beak. Assigned duties: war, fire, sundry domestic and industrial crafts, the end of the world. Literary amp; cultural significance: none. Also known as Bolodan (Sthrn), Polidan (lit.), the Dodger (colloq.). See also: Mannerists; Life of Fthr Azonicus of Lomessa; Enlightened thought; prophecies; end of the world, the; Land and Sea raiders, the; carts amp; wagons.

  He frowned, and stuck the bookmark in to mark the place, then looked up Josequin (two pages, mostly recommending popular inns, taverns, brothels and carpet stalls), the Guilds, Sansory (eight pages; lots of taverns), Mael Bohec, the empire and a number of other things, until his eyes were too tired to stay open and he fell asleep.

  He woke up an hour later (just as he opened his eyes, he thought he saw two crows, wonderfully carved out of huge lumps of coal, come to life and flap away, croaking resentfully) with pins and needles in both feet and a sore neck, just in time to blow out the lamp before it burned up the last few drops of his monthly oil ration. Sleeping in chairs, he decided, wasn't good for him. As he stood up, he felt something under his foot (extremely painful, in the circumstances) and guessed from the size and shape that it must be the book, fallen from his hands when he dropped off. He groped around for it but it wouldn't come to hand, and he let it lie till morning.

  Chapter Thirteen

  'It's just as well you happened to be in the area,' the magistrate said, quickening his pace to keep up. 'We've been going through the books trying to figure out which jurisdiction these clowns fall under, and it's starting to look depressingly like they slip down between the cracks. But of course, what we know about ecclesiastical law in this town could be written on the edge of a knife.'

  'Don't look at me,' Brother Monach replied over his shoulder. 'I'm not a lawyer.'

  'Yes, yes, I appreciate that,' the magistrate panted. 'But you're a priest, a brother of the order, so that must make you an expert, yes?'

  'On what?'

  Gods,' the magistrate said, 'and stuff like that. You see, this isn't what you'd call a passionately religious town-'

  'I'd noticed.'

  'Yes, well.' The magistrate was wheezing alarmingly, so Monach slowed down a little. Not too much, though. 'We all serve the Divine in different ways, don't we?'

  'Do we?' Monach stopped, his progress impeded by a heavy oak door. The magistrate caught up and paused for breath before knocking on it. A panel shot back, through which Monach could see a nose and a pair of eyes, then the door opened and a guard snapped to attention. For some reason, the magistrate seemed to find that embarrassing.

  'This way,' he said. 'Look, I appreciate that you may not think of yourself as an expert in this field, but you're a damn sight more of an expert than anybody else I can think of in this town. Will you help us out? Please?'

  Monach, who'd come here with the express intention of getting a chance to interview the prisoners, reluctantly agreed that he would. This seemed to make the magistrate very happy.

  'That's wonderful,' the magistrate said, taking a lantern from a sconce on the wall. 'Basically, we need to know if there's a case to answer on the ecclesiastical law charges-blasphemy, incitement to heresy, tempting providence, that sort of thing-because if there is, it'll be quite simple: we can hand them over to you-'

  This was, of course, exactly what Monach wanted. 'Me?' he said sharply. 'What the hell am I supposed to do with them?'

  'Take them somewhere and, well, try them. Put 'em on trial, lock 'em up, stretch their necks for 'em; you can even let the buggers go, if that's the right thing to do. Just so long as you get them off my slop ticket. I really couldn't care less. If you can't-meaning, if there's no case on the blasphemy counts-we're going to have to try to get them on general fraud and obtaining money by deception, and I have a really bad feeling about that on the basis of the evidence we've got. And if I put 'em on trial on secular charges and they get off, I might as well move into their cell and have the guards drop the key in the melt.'

  Monach laughed. 'Which is why you're so keen to get rid of them without bringing them to trial,' he said. 'Not bad. Quite shrewd, in fact.' He altered his tone of voice a little. 'Fact is, though,' he said, 'if the evidence doesn't disclose an apparent blasphemy or other illegal act, I'm not passing false judgement just to get you out of a hole. Understood?'

  The magistrate cringed a little. 'Understood,' he said. 'Still, when you hear what the witnesses have to say-'

  'I'll assess it for myself, thank you very much, without any helpful pointing in the right direction from you.' Talking to the magistrate like this made him feel a bit guilty; he could see plainly enough that the fix he was in wasn't his fault, and he was pretty sure he'd be doing something very similar if he was in the poor man's position. Nevertheless, it was important to act convincingly.

  The magistrate stopped outside another thick, black door. 'Here we are,' he said with fairly obvious relief. 'You want a guard in there with you, in case?'

  Monach grinned and pulled back the hem of his robe just an inch or so, enough to reveal the hilt of his sword. The magistrate obviously knew what he was looking at; Monach could sense the fear. 'You shouldn't really be carrying something like that in public,' he said quietly.

  'Benefit of clergy,' Monach replied. 'Besides, if they do try and attack me, all your problems will be over.'

  The magistrate made a valiant effort to hide his distaste. 'Well,' he said, 'just call out when you're done. We'll be right here.'

  The door opened into pitch darkness; the magistrate handed him the lantern, and he went in. He heard the door shut and the bolts go back, and lifted the lantern, extending its circle. At the extreme edge, he caught sight of two faces and took a step forward.

  They were sitting on the floor (no furniture in the cell) with their backs to the wall and their legs sticking out straight in front of them. The woman just looked frightened and miserable; the man was frightened too, but some last scrap of self-respect enabled him to scowl. Their faces were mottled with bruises and scabbed-over cuts. Monach settled comfortably on his knees, in the starting position for the third sequence (draw from a kneeling posture to engage an enemy seated opposite; single-handed cut to the throat followed by two-handed overhead cut to the opposite side of the neck; he'd been doing it so often for so long that it was hard to keep his hands still).

  'Well, now,' he said. 'Impersonating a god. It may be possible to get in more trouble, but I couldn't tell you offhand how to go about it.'

  'It's all a misunderstanding,' the man said. 'We-'

  'We didn't mean any harm,' the woman interrupted. 'We were just-'

  'We were just spreading the word,' the man cut in, and Monach had to make an effort not to smile; his guess was that they were husband and wife, probably had been for some time. 'Since when is it a crime to preach the Divine?'

  'Without a licence from the diocesan office,' Monach replied smoothly. 'Oh, about a hundred and fifty years, though I can't quote you the precise date or section number. Unlicensed preaching; let's see, that's an ecclesiastical felony, five years confined penance to death, depending on the facts; unless you're preaching a god not recognised by statute-basically, that means not listed in Strouthes' Digest-in which case it's incitement to heresy, ten years to death, with mitigation accepted from non-citizens. Failing which,' he went on with a gentle smile, 'there's at least half a dozen secular public order offences that cover the same ground, any one of which'll get you five years or more in the slate quarries. The slate quarries are marginally preferable to confined penance, because the religious orders don't have jails, only prison hulks, mines and galleys. Very few people survive long enough in the galleys to serve five years.' He shook his head. 'It could be worse,' he said. 'You could've been arrested a mile or so nearer to Mael and ended up there. The Guild isn't nearly as humanitarian as we are. Now,' he
went on after a pause, during which neither the man nor the woman made a sound, 'since sticking either of you two behind an oar won't achieve anything beyond a minor reduction in the efficiency of the Fleet, here's my suggestion. You stop trying to jerk me around and tell me the truth; I'll see what I can do to get you out of this in one piece. Shall we talk, or would you rather hear about the far more serious offence of impersonating a god?'

  He had their undivided attention. Good. 'Let's start with some names, shall we?' he said pleasantly.

  'I'm Tiryns,' the woman said, 'he's Louth Ressal.'

  Monach nodded. 'And how long have you been married?'

  'Twelve years.'

  Thought so. 'Where are you from?'

  'Ressal's from Josequin,' the woman told him. 'I'm from Morsello-'

  'Morsello, in Morevich? You're a long way from home.'

  The woman nodded. 'It's a long story,' she said.

  'No doubt.' Josequin, Monach said to himself, that's interesting. 'So, what prompted you to start impersonating gods, and how long did you do it for?'

  The man and the woman looked at each other. 'It was what happened at Josequin, I guess,' the man said. 'We were lucky' He pulled a face. 'Well, we thought so at the time. We'd gone to Weal; my mother was dying, we left as soon as we heard but we got there too late; when we got back, the city just wasn't there any more. Well, when we found out what had happened, we thought, thank God we weren't there. Then we realised that everything we'd had-the house and my workshop (I was a glassblower)-was all gone, nothing left. We didn't have anything, I couldn't do my work without tools, we didn't know where to turn. Then we happened to meet up with someone on the road who told us about the god in the cart, and we thought-well, why not? Except of course we didn't have a cart; but then, just as we were setting off heading for Sansory, we came across this big old farm cart tucked in under a hedge. Seemed like, you know, an omen; especially when we found a couple of riderless horses feeding nearby. We started from there and headed north-actually, we headed what we thought was north, we couldn't even get that right-and just our rotten bloody luck, the first village we tried was one where these other two had been before-'

  'Cric.'

  The man looked at him. 'Sorry?'

  'Cric. The name of the village.'

  'No, I don't think so. It was Scele or Scale, something like that. Can't remember precisely, but it wasn't Cric.'

  'Oh.' Monach looked up; that had thrown him. 'And this was after Josequin? You're sure about that? Because God help me if you're telling lies.'

  'Positive,' the woman put in. 'And I'm almost certain the name of the place was Scale, because it reminded me so much of my uncle Ascaltus, rest his soul. I don't think I've ever been to a place called Cric.'

  Monach took a moment to consider what he'd been told. It sounded entirely plausible; the part about getting caught the first time they tried to pull the scam was particularly convincing, it was just the sort of thing that would happen to the kind of feckless losers he took these two to be. There was only one thing that snagged in the lining of his mind, and it was too insignificant to bother about.

  'You're lying,' he said quietly.

  For a moment it looked as if they were going to protest, declare that every word was true, maybe shout or burst into tears. He was relieved that they didn't, since he found that sort of thing rather disturbing. 'How did you know?' the man said.

  'I'm not stupid,' Monach replied. 'Now, since you aren't going to tell me the truth, I'd better tell you. I don't know about you,' he went on, nodding at the woman, 'you may well be from Morevich for all I know, but you're not from Josequin.'

  The man sighed and looked at his feet. 'No,' he said.

  'No, My guess is you're either a deserter from the army or a veteran-early discharge for some reason or another-and you joined one of the free companies about twelve years ago-the bit about you being married a long time I do believe, not that it matters a damn. The point is, you're a southerner just like she is.'

  The man nodded. 'My dad was a veteran,' he said, 'got resettled in Morsello after his discharge. And that's true.'

  Monach shrugged. 'If you say so. What matters is that you come up here, north of the Bohec, deliberately intending to work this scam, and you've been doing it for at least six months. And you're good at it, too. Healing the sick-well, a woman hanging round the free companies learns a bit about setting bones and curing fevers, I guess that was your field of expertise.' The woman nodded. 'As for you,' he went on, turning to the man, 'the imperial corps of sappers and siege engineers is mostly recruited in Morevich; that's how you know about flares and bombards and other things that blow up and make a deafening noise when you set light to them. Very obscure and closely guarded branch of knowledge, that is; which makes deserter rather more likely than discharged veteran.'

  'All right,' the man said. 'Yes, I ran away. Do you want the details?'

  'No,' Monach replied. 'Anyway, that's what I know; everything bearing directly on your guilt and the kind of sentence you'll get. What I actually want to know is really nothing to do with that side of things, so by telling me the truth there's no way you can make things any worse for yourselves. But you could make them a lot better.'

  He left the words between them in the air for a moment or so, before continuing.

  'First question,' he said. 'And remember, if I think you're lying, you'll stay in the trouble you're in. All right. Why did you choose to impersonate Poldarn? Why pick a name that doesn't mean anything on this side of the bay?'

  The man shrugged. 'I grew up with stories about Poldarn,' he said. 'Besides, I know he doesn't exist. I didn't want to risk pretending to be a god who might exist.'

  Monach smiled. 'Nice reasoning,' he said. And why exactly are you so sure Poldarn doesn't exist?'

  'How do you mean?'

  Monach wasn't quite sure how to answer. 'I mean,' he said, 'given that you're a believer or at least an agnostic-hence the rather charming superstition-why single out Poldarn as a god who quite definitely doesn't exist? You said it like you'd seen proof somewhere.' He stopped, and frowned. 'Did I just say something funny? Must've been very funny indeed if it made you laugh, considering how much trouble you're in.'

  The man looked suitably ashamed. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'really. It just seemed so-well, odd; I mean, you're a priest, surely you know…'

  The scowl on Monach's face set hard, like concrete. 'Enlighten me,' he said.

  'It was the monks,' the woman cut in. 'At Endlupho Mountain. They made him up. They were short of money; people weren't going there any more, so they made up a god to get people to come and worship.'

  Monach sighed. 'What's she talking about?'

  'It's true,' the man said. 'Well, more or less. It was a long time ago, before Morevich was added to the empire. I don't know the details; it was something about the empire annexing a province, which cut right across the pilgrim trail to a famous shrine somewhere down on the coast. Endlupho was like a staging post for these pilgrims, and when they stopped going that way-started going another way so they wouldn't have to cross the bit the empire had taken over-the monastery at Endlupho was about to die out. So they cooked up a god of their own, started a pilgrim trail. It worked really well. Then about a hundred years ago the abbot of Endlupho got in a fight with the district agent over water rights in the valley or something of the sort, and the agent got so mad he sent his soldiers up the mountain to clear the monks out, and when they got there they found all the old chapter minutes and documents like that, going back hundreds of years, and it was all in there, about the abbot and chapter deciding to invent a god, even the records from the committee they set up to choose a name. As far as I can remember, it came down to a choice between Poldarn and Bettanc, and I think the abbot flipped a coin. In fact, I have an idea they got the name Poldarn off a roof tile-you know, the name of the brickyard that made it. Anyway, the other priests had it all hushed up and I don't suppose many people outside Morevich knew about it. But th
at's what happened. And there really is no such god as Poldarn.'

  Monach really didn't know what to say this time. 'Oh' didn't seem to cover it. It was a while before he could think of anything more impressive.

  'Doesn't change a thing,' he said at last. 'Impersonating a god who doesn't exist is even worse than faking one who does; it's idolatry.' He stood up, ducking at the last moment to avoid the low ceiling. 'Still,' he went on, 'as you've probably guessed, you've told me something I didn't know. Now tell me something else. Did you go to Cric?'

  The woman shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I promise.'

  'Right.' Monach sighed. 'All right, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell the magistrate that you're being transferred to Deymeson for trial, which'll please him no end, at any rate. As soon as we're out of sight of the city, I'm going to turn you loose. But if I ever hear another report about gods in carts or the second coming of Poldarn-or gods who don't exist because some bloody fool made them up-I'll have a word with my brothers in the martial order, and twenty sword-monks will be sent to find you and bring back your heads, nicely packed in salt and oregano to keep them fresh. You know about the sword-monks, do you?'

  The expressions on their faces suggested that they did. 'Thank you,' the man said.

  Monach sighed. 'My pleasure,' he replied sourly. 'Oh, and you might as well have this.' He picked twelve gold gross-quarters out of his sleeve and dropped them on the floor. 'That way, you won't have any need to make nuisances of yourselves till you're safely across the bay. You can do what the hell you like in Torcea and it won't cause me any problems. Just remember,' he said, putting his thumb behind the guard of his sword and shifting it out half an inch so they could see it. 'Keep your faces shut, be good, or I promise you, you won't realise you're dead till your heads hit the floor. Understood?'

  The magistrate was waiting for him out in the passage. 'Well?' he asked.

  Monach ran his sleeve across his forehead. 'Listen to me,' he said. 'I'm taking these two with me. You don't know anything about them. They were never here. Two people might have been arrested on suspicion of blasphemy, but it all turned out to be something and nothing, a bunch of inbred rubes overreacting and wasting everybody's time. Do you understand?'