Shadow s-1

by K. J. Parker

  And if he didn't do that, of course, he'd be in desperate trouble, because if they came in and found that the food and drink hadn't been touched they'd be concerned (good, caring neighbours that they were), and would put their heads round the partition to make sure he was all right, and they'd find Allectus dead and a strange man propped up next to him.

  So, taking advantage of their good nature was suddenly compulsory. Monach laughed; the whole thing was ludicrous, especially for a good monk and a student of ethical theory. He couldn't wait to get back to Deymeson and pitch it to his ethics class for discussion: Under what circumstances are deception and theft justifiable in the name of expediency? What difference does it make that the intended recipient of the charity is dead? That the deceiver's life is at stake? That the intended recipient gave his permission for the fraud?

  Had he? Monach seemed to remember that he had, but not the exact context. Either Allectus had told him so, in unambiguous terms, or he'd dreamed it (Discuss, with reference to the moral ambiguity of unsubstantiated perceptions…). Remembering was difficult, and getting more so. It was just as well he'd had such a firm foundation in mental discipline.

  He closed his eyes. Outside it was raining, but he couldn't hear that. He couldn't hear the sound of boots squelching in mud, or cartwheels in the street, as the Amathy house left Cric and went to war.

  What difference would it make if the deceiver acts in furtherance of the general good? Of a manifest destiny? What difference would it make if the deceiver incorrectly but sincerely believes that he acts in furtherance of a just cause or a manifest destiny? What difference would it make if the deceiver commits the deception knowing that the legitimate just cause or manifest destiny so authorising his deception has failed? Assuming that the deceiver is so justified, would that justification extend to fraudulent use or consumption of articles conducive to mere physical comfort, as opposed to the bare essentials required for survival? In such context, what would such bare essentials consist of?

  What difference would it make if the deceiver were a god?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They came for him the next morning, just as the voice in the night had said they would, and they took him to the abbot's lodgings, where the abbot told him all the lies the voice had warned him to expect. He pretended to believe them, just as the voice had advised him to do: Of course, he said, his voice low with wonder, it's all coming back to me now. I remember this place-over there's the drill hall, where I did my twelve grades, and the novices' dormitory's in the next yard over, and opposite that's the dining-hall. The voice had drilled it into him the night before, made him repeat it all a dozen times, to make sure the geography of the place was firmly fixed in his mind.

  Listening to the deceptions, knowing the truth, Poldarn couldn't help feeling a sense of elation, of release-partly because he was the one who was deceiving them, not the other way round, mostly because now, for the first time in a long time, he knew who he was. To begin with it had come as a complete shock; then he'd started to remember-not actual memories, but fragments of dreams in which he'd been the man he now knew he was, in which he'd heard and seen and known things that couldn't possibly have been picked up by eavesdropping on stray conversations or extrapolating from what Copis had told him. Also, it made perfect sense, explained so many of the strange, meaningless things that had happened to him-the attack on the cart by the three horsemen, shortly before they reached Cric; the meeting with Chaplain Cleapho in Sansory, and the soldier who'd recognised him in the kitchens of the inn, the one he'd had to kill before he could make the man tell him his own name. Most exhilarating of all was the realisation that his life had meant something, that he'd attempted and achieved things worthy of his talents and abilities, that he was on the right side.

  (And now he was about to achieve something else, far more important and beneficial than anything he'd ever done before; furthermore, he'd have the opportunity to punish the order with appropriate savagery for trying to trick and use him. No wonder he was the sworn enemy of these people, or that they'd been so keen to get him out of the way.)

  He listened carefully to what they had to say, while speculating as to which of the grave, solemn men sitting round the table was the voice he'd heard the night before. Only one of them spoke, making it possible for Poldarn to eliminate him at once (the prior of observances; and he was too tall, anyhow), which left him nine to choose from. Five of them were the right height and build. He'd have time and opportunity to figure it out over the next few days, and then he'd be able to make direct contact with his ally and put into operation a plan of his own that ought, if everything went as it should, to set everything right.

  (Your name, the voice had told him, is Cronan Suvilois. You were born on the sixth day of the Ninth, in the fourth year of Emperor Massin Dasa, in Torcea. Your family are southerners. Your father's name was Lalicot, and your mother, before her marriage, was called Actin Doricalceo. Your family was comfortable rather than wealthy, minor provincial nobility, of no great account in the capital; your father felt, correctly, that in order to make your way in the world you would need to follow a career, either the army or religion. Accordingly, when you were six years old, he sent you to the Paupers' Institute at Collibortaca-)

  'Of course,' the abbot was saying, 'we appreciate the fact that you probably won't remember the details of what you used to know for some while yet; as it happens, we have doctors here who've made a study of your sort of condition and probably know more about it than anybody else in the empire. When there's time, we'll send them to take a look at you, see if there's anything they can do. I believe they've managed to cure some pretty stubborn cases in the past.'

  'That'd be wonderful,' Poldarn said, making a mental note to add this to the list of crimes for which these people had to be punished, this wanton planting of false hopes. 'You don't know how much it means to me, even the hope of someone finding a cure. It'd be something to live for.'

  The abbot nodded. 'Plenty of time for that later,' he said. His face was stern but sympathetic, wisdom, justice and mercy combined in it like three elderly sisters sharing a house, ideal for the role of father, or god. 'First things first; we've got to get you back to where you're needed. Probably best if we supply you with an escort-trying to keep track of where you'd be likely to run into one of Cronan's scouting or foraging parties is a sure way to go mad, the way this war's going. With fifty horsemen along for the ride, it won't actually matter who you run into, short of a full cavalry squadron or a field army.'

  Awkward, Poldarn thought, but he had the presence of mind to appear pleased and grateful. He did it very well, and that seemed to disconcert the monks. No bad thing, needless to say.

  'Talking of which,' he asked as a diversion, or the equivalent of a rest in music, 'how is the war going? Has anything much been happening?'

  The abbot smiled. 'That's a very good question,' he said. 'If you mean battles and sieges and the like, then no, not much. It's what's not been happening that's so confusing.'

  It wasn't just the abbot who talked like that, of course. These monks all seemed to have the annoying habit of being gratuitously cryptic. He wondered what it was like in the dining-hall, when the grand prior wanted to ask the dean of the archives to pass the horseradish.

  (You graduated with honours from the Academy of Arts and War at nineteen, the voice had said, the youngest officer ever to join the service. Your first command was a platoon of pioneers attached to a frontier station on the Morevich border-no accident that you were given such a miserable assignment, you'd made enemies as well as friends at the Academy. That was the year the raiders sacked Malevolinza; with the main provincial garrison wiped out to a man, your station was the only Imperial resource left between the mountains and the sea. The Morevich rebels and the mountain tribesmen saw their chance; a dawn attack came within a hair's breadth of forcing the gates. They were beaten back, but all the station's command staff were killed in the first hour, leaving you in charge o
f a desperate, impossible defence-)

  'When do you think I should leave?' he asked. 'From what you've just told me, it'd better be sooner than later, surely.'

  The abbot dipped his head in agreement. 'Quite right,' he said. 'There are a few things we'll need to sort out in due course, and when you get back we'll have to give you a quick refresher course on being a sword-monk, and a good bit of additional background material on Brother Stellico, to make up for what you can't remember yet. But there really isn't time for any of that now.'

  What if they were telling the truth, and the voice in the night had been lying?

  He let the thought sit quiet for a moment, afraid of waking it up. 'What about my-' Involuntary hesitation; couldn't think of the right word. 'Wife' wasn't true; 'friend' was fatuously coy. 'What about my business partner?' he asked. 'I haven't seen her since this morning.'

  The abbot frowned. 'Oh, she'll be all right,' he said. 'Of course,' he went on, 'it'll be awkward for her, losing her associate so suddenly, but we'll see to it she's not out of pocket.'

  That was the first time that it occurred to Poldarn that there wouldn't be a place for Copis in this new old life of his. Was he still married? He didn't know; oh, he knew all manner of things about himself just from having overheard them in inns and bakers' shops, besides what the voice had told him, but the things he wanted to know weren't the sort of thing that anybody else could possibly know.

  'That's all right, then,' he said. 'So what'll you do? Let her go back to Sansory?'

  The abbot nodded. 'If you like, we can provide her with an escort,' he said. 'Probably just as well, if she's carrying a large sum of money and with the roads as they are.'

  'I'd appreciate that,' Poldarn said, wondering if he'd just made a serious mistake. They couldn't help but have heard the note of concern in his voice, the one that proclaimed, I care about this person, who would therefore make an ideal hostage, loud enough that they'd probably heard it in Boc. If he'd kept quiet and not mentioned her, perhaps they'd have forgotten about her and left her alone-no, precious little chance of that. He had an idea that the order made a virtue of scrupulous attention to detail. Still, going on about her now would only make things worse, and it wasn't as if he was in any position to do anything constructive for her.

  (Your first marriage, to Bolceanar Hutto, was purely a political affair, and ended in divorce once you achieved your first prefecture, to the great satisfaction of all parties. When you were twenty-six, however, and just about to leave Torcea to assume command of the expedition against the Fodrati, you made the drastic mistake of marrying for love. Sornith Eollo was the daughter of a prosperous building contractor rather heavily involved in bidding for military contracts-not to put too fine a point on it, for a master tactician you were either blind or deliberately obtuse. It didn't help that your feud with the young princes was just starting to become a major annoyance-it was the year of your infamous duel with Tazencius, which led to his disgrace and earned you the undying hatred of the entire Revisionist faction-)

  'Well,' the abbot said, 'I think that's more or less everything. Welcome back to the order, Brother Stellicho, and the best of luck for your mission.'

  That signified the end of the interview; he could feel them turning over his page and moving on to the next item of business. He allowed himself to be politely shooed out of the room by the four sword-monks who hadn't left his side since early that morning, and went with them across the yard, through a couple of arches, past the stables and the coach-house He didn't stop, because he didn't need to. When a man's been jolting and rattling along muddy, rutted roads in a cart for any length of time, he gets to the point where he can recognise that cart by the thickness of its tyres or the degree of warp in the side panels. Definitely his cart, their cart, but it was backed in and surrounded by a dozen others in the coachhouse, suggesting it had been subsumed into the transport pool, to be booked out and assigned to the duty carter next time a load of charcoal needed to be fetched or two dozen crates of chickens brought up from the market.

  Attention to detail, just as he'd guessed. Easy enough to reconstruct what had happened. A monk would have come back from the lower town that morning and sent for a carter, explaining that there was a cart down at the inn, and that its owners wouldn't be needing it any more; if it stayed there, the innkeeper might get to wondering what had become of the man and woman who'd brought it in-he wouldn't say anything out loud, of course, but loose ends like that are bad for morale. So the monk would have given the carter some kind of warrant or letter of authority, and the carter would have given it to the innkeeper, and the innkeeper would have told his groom to get the cart ready, and the carter would have turned it over to the transport officer or the duty officer, who would have told him to put it away with the others (waste not, want not; men and women die every day, but a functional cart is valuable property), and the cart itself would henceforth serve the order, purged of its identity and memory, because a piece of equipment is there to serve and be used by whoever has a right to it.

  'Just a moment,' he said, slowing down without stopping. 'I left some things in my cart last night. Would it be all right if we stopped off at the inn and picked them up?'

  'Don't worry about it,' one of the monks replied. 'We'll arrange for all your stuff to be collected and kept for you till you get back. If there's anything you need, we can stop by the quartermaster's.'

  They were in perfect position, two in front and two behind, just outside his circle. If they'd been closer or there had only been three of them, he'd have given it a try. But the order wouldn't make a mistake like that. Poldarn shrugged. 'No, the hell with it,' he said. 'It wasn't anything important.'

  'There'll be a horse waiting for you at the gate,' the monk continued. 'You'll have three days' rations, money for expenses in the saddlebag, change of clothes, blanket, water bottle, all the usual kit. Is there anything else you might need, do you think?'

  Poldarn didn't smile, though he felt moved to do so. 'Well,' he said, 'there's my book. Normally I wouldn't go anywhere without it, but just this once won't hurt.'

  The monk was curious. 'Book?'

  Poldarn nodded. 'Marvellous thing,' he said, 'contains all the wisdom in the world. Still, I won't be needing it for this job, I don't suppose.'

  'All the wisdom in the world,' the monk repeated. 'Must be a big book, then.'

  'Quite big,' Poldarn replied. 'Not as big as the recipe book, but it makes a good pillow.'

  The cavalry escort was waiting for him: fifty sword-monks, in dark brown and grey coats drawn from the quartermaster's bin marked 'Riding Coat, Civilian, Nondescript'. Would they be wearing armour under them, he wondered, or didn't sword-monks feel the need of steel rings and scales when they had their invisible circle of sharp steel around them at all times? If getting away from four monks on foot was beyond him, escaping from fifty of them on fast horses wasn't going to be any easier. Falx Roisin would have been delighted to give any one of them a job riding dangerous cargo.

  On an impulse he turned to the monk he'd already talked to and asked him, 'What do you know about a god called Poldarn?'

  The monk hesitated for a moment, then grinned. 'Bit late to be asking that now, isn't it?' he said. 'Besides, it should be me asking you, shouldn't it?'

  Poldarn shrugged. 'Well, you know,' he said. 'I always like to know who I've been.'

  'You were pretty good at it, by all accounts,' the monk replied. 'But really, she should've known better, or else she didn't know. Talk about tempting providence.'

  'I don't quite follow,' Poldarn said quietly.

  'Oh, no, of course,' the monk said. 'I forgot, sorry. The thing about Poldarn is, you see, that anybody who gets up in the cart with him always dies.' He made a vague gesture with his right hand. 'You could just about come up with a worse omen, but it'd take some fairly serious research. Still, there you are.'

  'Quite,' Poldarn replied. The monk had moved very slightly out of position, no more than a single st
ep, but enough. He could see the sequence perfectly clearly in his mind's eye, as if he was remembering something that had already happened. From the draw, he cut the side of this monk's neck and carried on, so that the curved tip sliced into the soft skin under the second monk's chin as he stepped away and left. By this time the two monks behind him had drawn and were one step, of the right foot forward, which was why his turn pivoted around his left heel, bringing the overhead diagonal slash perfectly in line with the left-side monk's right wrist; then the clever move, dodging left to keep the wounded man between himself and the fourth opponent, just long enough for a feinted lunge to make him shy backwards into a right-side rising cut to the chin; the wounded man, dealt with at his leisure, completed the pile of bodies, all four dead before the first hit the ground. And Father Tutor, looking on with grudging approval 'Is something the matter?' the monk asked him.

  Poldarn looked up sharply. Last time he'd looked, the monk had been toppling over backwards with the white of his spine showing through the red lips of the cut. Then he remembered: that hadn't actually happened, or not yet. On the other side of the yard, three birds pitched on the ridge of a roof. He looked again, and saw that they were pigeons.

  'This may sound like a silly question,' Poldarn asked slowly, 'but do we know each other?'

  The monk actually smiled. 'You're remembering, aren't you?' he said. 'Go on, see if you can…'

  'No,' Poldarn snapped. 'You tell me.'

  'All right.' The monk was still smiling. Three of them were now out of position, as good as dead; in another part of his mind he could see a fine mist of a few drops of their blood, hanging for a tiny moment in the air. 'My name's Torcuat. Ring any bells?'