by K. J. Parker
On the other side of the stockade, Monach observed with great pleasure, things didn’t seem to be going nearly as well. Brigadier Muno – he recognised him at once by his fine full-length blue cloak – stood in the centre of a buzzing cloud of staff officers, like an azure cow-pat surrounded by flies; but not much work seemed to be getting done. His soldiers were either leaning on their spears or sitting on their shields in the mud, not even bothering to try and find shelter from the pelting rain. Best of all, he had a clear view of Muno’s store-tents. Unless he’d arranged for a substantial supply train to follow on after him, Muno was only a few days away from starvation – and even if a hundred heavy wagons laden with flour and biscuits were already on their way, their chances of getting through were poor and getting worse with every gallon of water that fell out of the sky. Another thing Muno seemed to have forgotten in his haste to get underway was a sufficiency of tents. Monach looked up at the thick banks of iron-grey clouds piling in from the south and, for the first time he could remember, thanked the gods for rain: so much deadlier, he couldn’t help thinking, than a monk’s sword, or even a backsabre.
It was still slashing down when a small group of riders squelched up to the gates, one of them holding a stick from which drooped a thoroughly sodden white flag. Muno, it transpired, was prepared to negotiate, in the interests of avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. Big of him, Monach thought cheerfully, and gave the order for them to be allowed in. It was Spenno, clearly far crueller and more adept at mental warfare than he was, who had them shown into the warm, dry charcoal store and given hot soup and dry clothes.
That night, once the heralds had reluctantly gone home to their sodden blankets and two slices of wet bread, Spenno banked up the drawing-office fire with charcoal and poured Monach a mug of beer. ‘I remember doing sieges in fourth-grade Tactics,’ he said, ‘but I never thought it’d be like this. Cosy,’ he added, with a grin.
Monach frowned. ‘Let’s hope Brigadier Muno sees the funny side as much as we do,’ he replied. ‘I hate to say this, but my men aren’t soldiers. If they decide to attack, we haven’t got a clue how to go about defending a fortified position.’
‘We know that,’ Spenno replied. ‘He doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong,’ he added. ‘Muno’s a good soldier. Which means cautious. Which means sitting out there in the mud till his food runs out, then going away.’
Monach nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘this time. But we’ve got nowhere else to go. What’s going to happen when it stops raining, and he comes back? It was amazing luck, the supply train showing up when it did, but there won’t be any more carts coming down the road from now on.’
Spenno drank his beer and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘He’ll come back, all right,’ he said. ‘It’s when he comes back that’s important. They way I’ve got it figured, it’ll be three days before he packs up and leaves then a week to get supplies. He’ll be doing really well if he’s back again inside of a fortnight. We’ve got food for three weeks.’
Monach got the feeling he was missing the point. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘So he comes back, we sit here for a week and then surrender. By which time—’
But Spenno was shaking his head. ‘Eight days,’ he said. ‘That’s all I need.’
‘Oh.’ Suddenly, Monach realised what Spenno was talking about.
‘Maybe even less,’ Spenno went on. ‘Drilling out the bore’s going quicker than I thought, and we’ve made a few mods to the rig that ought to save a whole lot of time when we come to do the next batch. Sawing off the sprues, too, I reckon we can halve the time on that. And making the carriages – well, I was reckoning on having to build limbers, for hauling the bloody things cross-country. Fixed carriages, for shooting down from the watchtowers, much easier. By the time old Muno comes back again, we’ll have a welcome for him he’ll never forget.’
I wouldn’t go that far, Monach said to himself: it’s amazing what you can forget if you really set your mind to it. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You think we can drive off a full battalion of regular Imperial troops with these tubular-bell things.’
Spenno looked hurt. ‘And you call yourself a man of the cloth,’ he said. ‘You’ve got no bloody faith.’ He shook his head. ‘Fine visionary leader you turned out to be. I’ve been asking around,’ he added slyly. ‘This is all your idea, this Brotherhood of Light or whatever it’s called.’
Monach sighed, as a raindrop filtered through a tiny hole in the roof and fell on the back of his hand. ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘Oh sure, I’m the Mad Monk. After Deymeson got destroyed – well, actually, I was laid up for months after that, I got in a fight—’
Spenno nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘With Feron Amathy. You wanted to kill him or something like that.’
Monach shook his head. ‘Not exactly, no,’ he said. ‘The man I was sent to kill was General Cronan; Father Tutor reckoned it was a good idea, but he died before he could tell me why. Still, that was no reason not to obey orders. I failed, of course.’
‘But he died anyway.’
‘People die,’ Monach replied, ‘even without me killing them. He was caught by the raiders. I was there at the time. But that’s beside the point. After Deymeson was trashed and once I was back on my feet again – no, I’m skipping ahead.’ He paused. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s a long story.’
‘Nothing better to do,’ Spenno replied equably.
‘Thank you so much.’ Monach looked away; the expression on Spenno’s face was vaguely disconcerting. ‘Anyhow, after the battle when the raiders got a bloody nose, I was sort of left behind, I was nobody’s business but my own; which would’ve been fine except I had four broken ribs and a whole lot of other injuries, and I really thought I’d had it that time. But then someone found me, someone I was at school with—’
‘Xipho Dorunoxy. Like I said, I asked around. She took you in a cart to some village.’
Monach nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Cric, it was called – it was where the God in the Cart had predicted the destruction of Josequin. Only it turned out that she was the priestess, and the god had been another old school friend of ours, by the name of Ciartan; but that’s a very long story—’
‘Never mind,’ Spenno said. ‘Go on.’
‘If you’re sure.’ Another raindrop landed on Monach’s neck, making him wince. ‘For some reason I never did find out about, Xipho was under orders from Father Tutor to play some sort of mind game with this Ciartan – he’d had an accident and lost his memory, hadn’t got a clue who he was, let alone who she was, if you can believe it.’
‘You’d be amazed what I can believe when I want to. Like I said, I got faith.’
Monach wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but he put it out of his mind. ‘That’s what Xipho was doing, anyhow: she was going round with this Ciartan, pretending that she hadn’t known him since we were all kids together, that he was just somebody she’d met on the road a few months before. The Order wanted him for something; but whatever their grand scheme was, it got lost in the wash when Deymeson was taken out. So there was Xipho, at something of a loose end, and she happened to find me. So she took me back to Cric, where the locals reckoned she was the priestess of the Second Coming, and spun them some yarn about me being the Redeemer out of some old legend or prophesy, and how I’d fought off the God in the Cart and stopped him bringing about the end of the world. Only while I’d been about it I’d taken one hell of a pounding, so it was their religious duty to help her look after me till I was on my feet again.’
Spenno nodded. ‘Little white lie, then. Where was this Ciartan while all that was going on?’
‘We had no idea – he’d just sort of vanished. Anyway, while I was healing up in Cric, the story Xipho’d told them– all complete bullshit, incidentally, there never was any such prophecy – it got around, and loads of people started showing up to give thanks to the Redeemer, the sort of mass hysteria you get when there’s wars and disasters.
But in with all the peasants and knuckle-draggers there were a lot of sword-monks, pretty well all of us who’d escaped from Deymeson. It was Xipho’s idea to round up all these misfits and turn them into a sort of army. To begin with, I think it was just that she was bored with waiting around to see if I’d die or not, and it was something to do. Anyway, by the time I was out of bed and on my feet again, she’d got them believing I really was some sort of great hero, and basically they refused to go away again. So there we were with an army, not knowing what the hell we wanted it for or what we might find to do with it . . . Like a huge, violent lost puppy that hangs round your door whimpering till you throw a stick for it. I don’t know.’ Monach cupped his hands over his face. ‘I was too stunned by what’d happened, I guess, I didn’t really care. And I didn’t do anything, it was all Xipho, making speeches and leading prayer meetings and all sorts of stuff. And then when the baby was born—’
‘Yours?’ Spenno interrupted.
Monach grinned. ‘Not likely. No, Ciartan was the father, which only goes to show how dedicated Xipho is to the Order, because she can’t stand him. But she spun the troops some ridiculous yarn about an immaculate conception or something of the sort, and the poor fools believed her. She’s really good at manipulating the weak-minded.’
‘Sounds like it.’
Monach nodded. ‘I asked for that, didn’t I? Anyway, that’s about it. Ever since, we’ve been wandering about the countryside, living hand to mouth out of what we can scare people into giving us. We’ve had a few skirmishes with government troops, a couple of minor collisions with the Amathy house, and for some reason nobody ever saw fit to explain to me, we sort of ended up here, in Tulice. Probably Xipho had some reason for wanting to be here, because I have an idea she’s always got a reason for everything. But she’s gone – not dead or anything, she just disappeared a short while back. Took the baby, but left me to mind the army. The baby would’ve been less trouble – I’ve been landed with a thousand helpless infants to keep fed and changed.’
‘I see.’ Spenno was sitting with his elbows on his knees, looking at Monach like a painter studying a spider’s web before making his preliminary sketches. ‘And the troops: they still think you’re the true Redeemer?’
Monach laughed. ‘I doubt it very much,’ he said. ‘About three-quarters of the original mob have quietly deserted since Cric. I think the ones who’re still here just don’t have anywhere else to go, or they don’t like the idea of working for a living. Xipho didn’t seem too bothered about the desertions, so long as the sword-monks stayed with us; and most of them have, though don’t ask me why. I’m pretty much convinced none of them think I’m the Son of God or whatever; most of them’ve known me since I was fourteen.’ He smiled bleakly. ‘I was the little fat kid who hung around with the big tall ones so as not to get bullied. The Earwig, my nickname was. Hardly your ideal solar-hero material.’
‘That’s interesting,’ Spenno said neutrally. ‘And now here you are, and you’ve got hold of the first working prototype of the Poldarn’s Flute project, which is the biggest military secret in the whole Empire. And you reckon it just sort of happened that way, more by luck than judgement.’
Monach yawned. ‘It’s possible,’ he said, ‘but so are three-headed chickens. No, I think Xipho planned all this, like she plans everything. I think that she’s got a little bit of paper tucked down her front where she’s written down every time I’m going to take a shit for the next five years, assuming I’ll be allowed to live that long. But I’m used to that – I was brought up to run errands for Father Tutor. It was what I could do for religion.’
Spenno was silent for a while; then he said; ‘Do you think she’s got another bit of paper headed “Ciartan”?’
‘Probably got bits of paper for everybody in the whole world. A bit like a god, really.’ He looked up, smiling crookedly. ‘You know, maybe I got it wrong, back when I was sent to find the god in the cart. Maybe she was the one I was meant to be tracking.’
‘Sorry?’ Spenno said. ‘You lost me.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Anyway, I don’t believe in gods, only in religion. You know what I’d really like to do? I’d like to wait till it’s pitch dark tonight, and then crawl out under the gate and get as far away from here as I possibly can.’
‘Wouldn’t we all?’ Spenno said. ‘But where’d you go?’
Monach pursed his lips. ‘Oddly enough, I’ve thought about that. There’s other countries, you know, a long way away across the sea. There’s the one Ciartan came from, for one. Or the place where the raiders live, though I don’t suppose they’d want me. Still, I’m not exactly welcome here, either.’
Spenno looked at him for a while; then he said: ‘You know what? For an educated man, you don’t think much.’
‘Wasn’t brought up to think,’ Monach replied. ‘Thinking blurs the moment, remember? Don’t think, just draw, that’s the whole point of religion.’
It was Spenno’s turn to yawn. ‘If you say so. I think I missed that bit, or else I’d left before we got on to it. So what’s you going to do?’
‘Not sure. I think that when Brigadier Muno shows up, I’m going to point your Poldarn’s Flutes at him and hope they don’t blow me up when I give the order to set them off. How does that sound? Reasonable?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Spenno replied. ‘I’m just the engineer.’
Monach looked up at him, and something dropped into place in his mind. ‘Are you, though?’ he said. ‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘What do you mean?’
Monach straightened up a little in his chair. ‘For one thing,’ he said, ‘you’re sounding different. The folksy turns of phrase, and the Tulice accent you could cut with a knife. They were out of place anyway,’ he added, ‘for someone who spent – how long were you at Deymeson? Three years?’
‘Four.’
‘Four years. They’d have kicked that accent out of you inside a month. All sword-monks talk like they’ve just burned the roofs of their mouths drinking hot soup – it’s the rule. And how did you come to be here, anyway? You never did tell me.’
Spenno grinned. ‘Same way as you,’ he said. ‘There’s some bugger somewhere with a little bit of paper with my name at the top.’
Monach thought about that for a moment. ‘You were sent here. Posted, like a soldier.’
‘Sort of. More like a merchant company or a bank; in places that aren’t important enough to have a regular office, they have an agent, someone who looks after their interests there when the need arises. Same with me. What I do for a living is cast bells, because that’s what I’m good at, it’s what I’m for; but one day a year every five years or so I have to do a little job for the Order. It’s no big deal.’
For some reason, Monach felt his skin crawl, and at the back of his mind he thought of how a flock of crows sends out its scouts to see where it’s safe for the main body to feed: one tiny part of the great group mind, but containing the whole. ‘But that doesn’t matter any more,’ he said. ‘The Order’s over and done with, isn’t it? Ever since Deymeson—’
Spenno nodded slowly. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten, you’re right. Good riddance, too. I never did figure out what good it was supposed to be to anybody.’
‘First,’ Copis said, ‘I need to know how much you remember. Just so we don’t waste time telling you things you already know.’
The fire was struggling to stay alight on a diet of wet twigs and sodden leaves. The rain was still falling, and the best they could do by way of shelter was the canopy of the cart, rigged as a rather inadequate tent on four ash poles. Poldarn felt cold through to his bones, even though he was so close to the fire that his hands were stinging. It occurred to him to ask where the baby was, but he decided against it.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘And the answer is, not very much. I’m pretty sure that my name is Ciartan and that my father was Tursten; he was killed before I was born. When I was about sixteen, I joined the ord
er at Deymeson. You two were in the same class as me; we learned swordfighting, mostly. Also, I think Prince Tazencius had something to do with it. I may have married his daughter, even. Apart from that—’
Gain and Copis looked at each other; then Gain said: ‘That’s all true. Actually, you know a lot more than that, because I told you myself.’
‘You didn’t ask what you told me, you asked what I can remember. There’s a difference.’
Copis smiled. ‘Meaning, Gain might not have been telling the truth. Fair point. After all, I lied to you from the moment I found you, back in the Bohec country. But what you just said: that’s what you can actually remember?’
Poldarn shrugged. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It’s getting hard to know what’s memories and what’s stuff I’ve been told. The things that I know are memories aren’t particularly helpful – like, I can remember sitting in a hide in a field of peas, killing crows with a bucketful of stones, and I can remember going with my grandfather to see the hot springs on the mountain above our house. They’re proper memories, sharp and clear. But a lot of it’s just remembering dreams that I’ve been having lately, and for all I know they’re just my mind chewing over stuff that people have told me – like you,’ he added, looking at Gain, ‘and other people I’ve run into who reckon they know me. It’s hard to believe that everybody’s been lying to me – there’d have to be a very good reason. But what if there is a reason that good? I just don’t know, is the straight answer.’
Copis poked the fire with a stick, stirring up a little swarm of sparks. ‘You still think like a member of the Order,’ she said, ‘which is what I’d expect. And you’re very suspicious, which is all part and parcel of the scientific method. What I don’t understand, and it bothered me when we were going round in the cart together, is how it’s like you don’t really want to know; like you’re aware you’ve done some terrible thing you’re scared to remember so you’re tiptoeing round it so you won’t wake it up. That’s not how we were taught.’
