The Two of Swords, Volume 2

by K. J. Parker

  At noon he passed an inn—door open, windows not boarded up, four men sitting outside sharing a jug of something. But the men were old, and there were no horses tied to the rail. Apart from Glabria, he hadn’t seen a man under fifty for a long time.

  He guessed most of his fellow travellers must’ve stopped at the inn, because from then on until sunset he had the road to himself. He managed not to let that bother him. The fields on either side of the road were flat stubbles, with broad headlands and only the occasional maiden willow, so he could see a long way and be sure he wasn’t being followed. He realised he was walking fast, setting a pace that hurt his calves and ankles. He tried to slow down, but it didn’t feel right. Glabria had told him he wouldn’t reach the river before nightfall, but maybe he could; there would be barges tied up for the night, and he’d have a far better chance of finding one that would take him. Plenty of time to rest and take it easy once he was safely on board, floating down the middle of a wide river.

  He reached the river quite some time after the sun had set, walking toward lights which he assumed to be the boatmen’s campfires. In fact they turned out to be lamps, hung on the side rails of the barges, which loomed like a street of houses out of the shadows. He walked a short distance down the towpath listening for voices, and found himself face to face with a girl, in a big coarse blue coat, carrying a bucket of water. She stared at him, then called out, “Nula, come here. Right now.”

  He took a step back, out of the lamplight, so the girl couldn’t see his face. He heard boot heels on a wooden deck, then a thump as someone jumped from the boat on to the path. A lantern glared at him, and a girl’s voice said, “Dear God, it’s a—”

  “Shut up, Maza,” said a third girl’s voice behind him. “Here, you. What are you snooping round for?”

  He turned, into the light of another lantern. Behind it he caught a flash of golden hair, under a dark hood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wondering—”

  “Maza, Frez, on the boat, now.” The lantern lifted up; the girl behind it was inspecting him. “On the boat, I said.”

  “Nula—”

  “Now.” He heard unhappy noises behind him, but didn’t turn. “Now listen, you,” the girl went on. “You’re very tall and pretty but I’m afraid we can’t have you; we don’t know where you’ve been. Obviously you’re a deserter—”

  “You don’t know that,” said a voice behind him. “Nula, it’s been years.”

  “And you know as well as I do what happens to people who harbour deserters,” the girl in front of him went on: “we could lose this boat and, frankly, I don’t care, you’re not worth it. Now please go away before I start screaming.”

  Musen started to back away, then remembered he was hemmed in. “I just want a lift to the coast,” he said. “I’m not a deserter. I got my discharge. I won’t be any bother.”

  “I see. Got your papers?”

  “No, but—”

  “Fine. I’m going to count to five. One.”

  Musen took a long step back, collided with something, sidestepped, turned and ran. Behind him he heard a piercing voice—“Nula, how could you?”—and decided he hadn’t run far enough. He didn’t stop till he’d reached the end of the line of barges; then he dropped to his knees and crouched for a moment, until the lanterns left the towpath and went back on the barge.

  “Hey, you down there.” A man’s voice. “Yes, you. I’m talking to you.”

  Musen stood up. “Excuse me—”

  “Quiet. Let me look at you.” Another artificial yellow sunrise blazed in his face. “What was all that racket about back there?”

  Musen took a deep breath. “I’m looking for someone who’ll give me a lift downstream,” he said. “I asked some women, but I think I must’ve scared them or upset them or something, so I—”

  “Ran away. Very wise. Wish I’d had the sense when I was your age. Still.” The lantern lifted, and he saw an old man, big head, bald, stubby white beard. “Trouble is, no matter how hard you run, they catch you in the end. This is my wife, Altea. I’m Cusen. Come aboard.”

  The lantern swayed, and he saw an old woman, with long white hair tied back in a ponytail, and a ladder. “Don’t just stand there,” the woman said. “Come on, we won’t eat you. And don’t listen to him,” she added: “he’s an idiot. Where did you say you were headed?”

  The barge must’ve been a grand affair once; it had a cabin, with three bunks and a table. The old man put the lantern down, sat on the edge of the bunk and said, “Now then, let’s have a look at you.”

  “I’m not a deserter,” Musen said. “I just want to go south.”

  “Course you do,” the woman said. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Bread.”

  “Good, we’re hungry. Got any money?”

  “Give the boy a chance,” the man said. “Let him sit down, take the weight off.”

  “Thirty stuivers,” the woman said. “Just passage, no board.”

  “That’s fine,” Musen said. He dug his hand in his pocket and showed them the money. “And I can help out, if you want me to.”

  The old man shook his head. “No need,” he said. “It’s no sweat working a barge: if it was, we couldn’t do it.” He got up, took the coins, gave them to the old woman, who put them in her mouth. “If you wouldn’t mind sharing,” he went on, nodding at the bag. “What with one thing and another, we ran out of food. Make it up to you at the lock.”

  “That’s fine,” Musen said, and took a loaf from his bag. The old woman hopped up, pounced on it like a cat and took it to the table. “You don’t want to pay any mind to those stupid girls,” she said, tearing into the loaf with her fingers. “They’d have eaten you alive, and that’s a fact.”

  “Truth is,” the old man said, “nobody gives a shit who you are on the river. That Nula, she didn’t want the other two scratching each other to death, that’s all. Got some sense, that one, more than the other two, though that’s not saying a great deal. You stick with us, son; we’ll take you where you want to go.”

  Cusen hadn’t always been a waterman, oh no; his father had been one of the original Ocnisant gang—that was Piemo Ocnisant, the old man, not young Siama who was running things now. This was back before the war, mind—well, this war, anyhow: there’s always a war, isn’t there, but people don’t notice unless it’s right under their noses. No, they were high old times growing up with Piemo’s bunch, good money to be made and never in the same place twice, except when the gang blew into town with money in their pockets. But his father made him promise: son, this is no life for an old man; put a bit by when you can; get yourself a stake and go into some other line of business. Poor old devil didn’t take his own advice, mind, he loved the life too much, moving about, always the chance of the big score; caught a fever and died when he was forty-seven. But the Ocnisants look after their own, famous for it, and a lad who was willing to work was fine by them. But then Cusen had got married, kid on the way, and there was a big score—start of this war, matter of fact, hell of a big battle and they all reckoned it’d be over by midsummer. So he sold out his share—God only knows what it’d be worth now, of course, didn’t bear thinking about—and sold off the various bits and pieces he’d put by, and bought this bloody old boat. Not that it was a bad life, the three of them working together: that was before the boy got called up, of course. Different now, just the two of them slogging away, and not getting any younger. Made you think, really; what’s going to happen when all the old folk get too old, and then there’ll be nobody at all left to do the work, and God only knew what’d happen then. It’d be just girls, like that mad Nula and her sisters, and a few cripples with only one arm.

  He woke up because he couldn’t breathe. Axio was standing over him. He smiled, lifted his heel and stamped on Musen’s ribs.

  “Hello,” he said. “You bloody idiot.”

  The lamps were still lit, and Musen could see the old man and his wife, sitting on a bunk, watching. The Blemyan
knife was on the deck beside him. He moved his hand, and Axio stamped on that, too; then he shuffled it away with the side of his foot and kicked it across the cabin.

  “That’s him, then?” Musen heard the old woman say.

  “Oh, yes,” Axio replied. “That’s my boy.”

  Musen tried to breathe, but the weight on his chest—there was nothing there—was too great for his muscles to lift. He managed about a cupful of air, and choked.

  “You’re not going to kill him here, are you?”

  “I promised, didn’t I?” Axio reached down, caught hold of Musen’s wrist and hauled him up; doubled the hand behind his back and applied pressure. Musen’s own weight was on the joint, pulling it apart, but Axio’s grip was the only thing holding him up. “Thanks ever so much. We’ll be going now.”

  “We know our duty,” the old man said. “I’m an old soldier, me.”

  Axio wheeled him round, like a heavy barrel or a crate, then lifted him by the agonising elbow joint and kicked his heels forward to get him walking. “Course you are,” he said, and his free hand opened, and four gold angels landed on the table, rolled and fell off.

  “Deserters,” the old woman said. “String ’em up, I say. Nothing but cowards, that’s what they are.”

  Axio solved the problem of getting Musen off the boat by jamming him against the rail and shoving him in the chest. Musen toppled backwards and landed on his shoulder on the towpath; a moment later, Axio vaulted down after him and dragged him up again. “Onwards,” he said briskly. “We haven’t got far to go.”

  About a hundred yards down the towpath, well clear of the lights from the boats. Axio let go of him and he dropped, and then he felt Axio’s boot on his neck.

  “You might like to know the blacksmith told me,” Axio said. “Of course, the forge was the first place I asked: have you seen a tall man, split lip nearly healed? He couldn’t have been more helpful, once I told him who I was.” The boot was slowly crushing his windpipe. “He guessed the pack was something really important, and that you’d stolen it. But you looked so desperate, and you had a knife.” He laughed. “I told him you were soft as butter.”

  Musen couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He tried to think of the cards: Poverty, the Chariot, the Angel, the Drowned Woman (no, not her), the Cherry Tree, Destiny, Hope. There is always grace, he told himself, grace in life, grace in death, the one grain of grace that cures the flesh, grace disregarded in the mud and trodden on, but harder than diamonds. Death doesn’t matter, the fire and the hammer. Grace will draw us up and make us clean—

  The pressure had stopped. Using every last scrap of his strength, he breathed in, dragging the air past all the creases and the pain, like a man hauling a heavy sack up into a loft.

  “You clown, Musen,” Axio said. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

  “You really want to pack it in,” Axio was saying, as he built the kindling up round the thin, guttering flame. “For one thing, all this getting beaten up and having the shit kicked out of you, it’s not good for you: first thing you know, it’ll ruin your health. I mean, you’re young now, you heal quickly; in six months or a year you’ll be up and charging about good as new, should you manage to live that long. But sooner or later it’ll be one boot in the kidneys too many, and you’ll be pissing every five minutes for the rest of your days. I ask you, is it worth it?”

  Axio was heating up some chicken broth. He had three horses tied up in a barn, about half a mile from where the boats were moored. Two of the horses had saddles and bridles; the third was a packhorse, for carrying the supplies.

  “I don’t know how anyone could be so damned inconsiderate,” Axio went on. “You do realise, if anyone ever finds out what you’ve done, and I let you live, not once but twice, that’s me finished. Out on my ear: lucky if they don’t string me up too. Yes, I know, sparing a fellow craftsman’s life—well, sparing, saving, all the same thing, really. But I have to point out, I’m not a saint; there’s a limit to the level of risk I’m prepared to expose myself to, even for a comrade in arms, even for a friend. I really mean it, Musen. One more stunt like that and you’ll leave me no choice.” He filled the ladle and sipped from it. “Just as well you’re in no shape to run any more.”

  Axio had had to carry him the last couple of hundred yards; over his shoulder, like a sack. He’d brought bandages with him, for binding up the cracked ribs and the crushed hand, splints for the broken fingers. “You’ll never play the violin,” he’d observed. “Just as well you’re not musical. You aren’t, are you?”

  Axio had taken the cards. Musen had watched him stow them away in a pocket, with a flap that buttoned down. It was his right hand Axio had stamped on. He didn’t have nearly the same dexterity in his left.

  “Here,” Axio said, and held out the handle of the ladle. “Careful, it’s hot.”

  Musen reached for it with his left hand, then hesitated. “Not hungry,” he said.

  “What? Don’t be so bloody stupid, eat the damned soup.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Fuck you, Musen. What are you, six years old? You do realise, don’t you, that thanks to your stupid, idiotic behaviour, Rasch Cuiber might fall before we can get these cards to the emperor. In which case, tens of thousands of people will die, and it’ll all be our fault, yours and mine.” He put the ladle back in the pot. “And after all the misery and pain and effort I’ve been to keeping you alive, you’ve got the ingratitude, the sheer bad manners to pull some sort of childish hunger strike and starve yourself to death. What does it take to get through to you, Musen? You won’t bloody listen and I’m just too bone weary to hit you any more. You won’t even tell me why you want the stupid thing.”

  “If I did, would you listen?”

  Axio groaned. “Of course I’ll listen. Dear God, why must everything be so difficult?”

  “All right,” Musen said quietly. “You remember I asked you what we were stealing the cards for. You told me, it was to trade them for Rasch.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Musen took a deep breath. “I met him, remember,” he said. “The emperor. It was when he wanted to buy the Sleeping Dog. I know how he thinks. About the cards, I mean.”

  Axio frowned. “Go on.”

  “He’d never just swap ending the war for a pack of cards,” Musen said, “not even the pack he wants most of all, in the whole world. He wouldn’t do that, not if he knew they were safe somewhere, and you all know it. But if you went to him and showed him one card, and told him, if Rasch falls, you’ll destroy the rest of the pack—” He paused and looked at Axio, who looked away. “I think he’d go for that, but I can’t be sure. And if he said no, you’d send him the cards, cut and mangled, one by one, until he gives in or they’re all spoiled. And I couldn’t let you do that.”

  Axio sat quite still for a moment. Then he turned and met Musen’s eye. “You’re a bright boy,” he said. “I keep telling everyone, but they all think you’re stupid, just because you’re from Rhus and you act like a fool.” He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got my orders. And you know you can’t beat me.”

  “No,” Musen said. “But I can keep trying till Rasch falls and the cards are safe.” He shrugged. “Or I thought I could.”

  “Maybe you have.” Axio poked the fire with a stick; it was going out, and there was no wood left. “God, I hope not. If all those people die—”

  “They’ll die anyway,” Musen said shrilly. “This time, or the next time, or they’ll just starve because there’s no more food. But the silver packs, once they’re gone, they’re gone, for ever.” He shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand,” Axio said sharply. “I’ve seen it, the Sleeping Dog, the pack we sold to build Central. I was so angry—” He took a deep breath, then went on. “You know what? If I’d been a bit braver, a bit less of a chickenshit, I’d have stolen the Sleeping Dog myself, so they couldn’t sell it. I planned it all o
ut. I had a plan, it would probably have worked, but I couldn’t be sure, and I lost my nerve, and now it’s gone. Probably I’ll never see it again. Oh, I understand all right. But building Central was a stupid reason, it was just vanity, it was obscene. I had to make a choice, Rasch or—” He looked up, and Musen saw his eyes were wet. “You know what?” he said. “It could so easily be me with the busted hand and the busted rib. I understand you: that’s why you’re still alive.” Then, quite suddenly, he laughed. “My idiot brother,” he said. “He’s got a saying. There’s always three reasons: the good reason, the plausible reason and the real one. And they’re all true. Oh, screw this for a game of knucklebones, now you’ve made me quote my brother, and that always riles me. You can’t have it, Musen, I’m sorry, but that’s final. Do you get that? Capisce?”

  Musen slowly let go the breath he’d been holding. “Actually,” he said, “that can’t be your brother. It’s Saloninus.”

  Axio stared at him. “You what?”

  “That thing you said. It’s from Saloninus. You know, the great writer, hundreds of years ago. They taught us that at Beal Defoir.”

  “They’ll want to send you to Choris,” Axio said. “After all, you’ve met the man: it’d make sense.”

  Riding hurt. Every movement the horse made twisted the broken rib and stretched the bruised one, and the pressure of the stirrup iron on the ball of his foot made his crushed toes ache. “They’d send a diplomat, surely. I mean, you’d need somebody trained, who could do all that.”