by K. J. Parker
He nudged Musen in the ribs. The boy groaned. Not a morning person. “Wake up,” he said quietly. “We’re in trouble.”
Musen lifted his head, opened his eyes and saw the boots. To his credit – Pleda was genuinely impressed – he didn’t panic or anything like that. He rolled over on to his face and crawled out from under the cart. Pleda did the same.
Five men. Three of them were sitting on chairs, the other two standing behind them like footmen in a great house; they might have been sitting for a portrait. Certainly they were dressed for it. The left- and right-hand chairs were regulation military folding, but the middle one was a deluxe model, gilded, delicately curved and tapered legs, arm rests carved into lions’ heads. On it sat the most handsome man Pleda had ever seen in his life. Not particularly tall (it’s so hard to tell when someone’s sitting down); strongly built but perfectly proportioned; beautiful hands with long fingers; dark hair just shy of shoulder length; high cheek bones, quite a long face ending in a square chin, straight nose, clean-shaven, clear grey eyes, a strong mouth, a smile of mild amusement. He was wearing an ornate, heavily embroidered robe with a fur collar, the sort affected by merchants with three times as much money as taste, but on him it wasn’t the least bit flashy or vulgar; he had dark green boots, and a broad-brimmed leather travelling hat rested on his right knee. The men on either side and behind him wore armour, regulation, an eclectic and informed blend of the best of East and West. They sat and watched like the audience in a theatre, waiting for the actors to come on stage.
Pleda scrambled to his feet; Musen stayed kneeling, in the wet. Pleda felt sure he had a reason, though he couldn’t see what it might be. The handsome man smiled. “Good morning,” he said. His voice was soft, deep and accentless.
Five men, three chairs, no horses. “Hello,” Pleda said. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
He’d said something amusing. “You know, I can’t think of anything,” the handsome man said. “The cart’s loaded, and you’ll see we’ve already tacked up the horses. No, I don’t think we need you for anything at all.”
Well, hardly a surprise. “Are you going to kill us?”
The handsome man shrugged. “I haven’t decided,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t bother,” Pleda said.
The handsome man rested his chin on his beautiful right hand. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “My colleagues here reckon it’d be tidier to get rid of you. I took the view that with no food and no transport, it’s a moot point anyway.” He inclined his head just a little toward the cart. “Is that really all you’ve got in the way of supplies?”
“We’re lost,” Musen said. “We’ve been wandering about for days.”
“That’d explain it,” the handsome man said. “Well? Haven’t you got anything to say for yourselves?”
Pleda looked at him, and then at the four men in armour. The handsome man was clean, well-groomed, his gown untorn, his boots unscuffed; the other four looked like soldiers on active service with a good outfit, kit clearly well used but properly looked after. The standing man on the left held a strung longbow, though there was no arrow on the string. “Where’s your horses, then?”
“No horses,” the handsome man said, “we walked. We owe you our lives. I’m sorry we can’t be properly grateful.”
“You’re lost,” Pleda said.
The handsome man considered him for a moment, as if translating him from some abstruse dead language. “True,” he said. “So are you.”
“You don’t want to listen to the boy,” Pleda said. “We’re not lost. We’ve got a map.”
“Is that right?” The soldier on the left leaned across and muttered something in the handsome man’s ear. “I’d like to see it please.”
“I bet.”
“I can take it from your dead body if you’d rather.”
“Fine.” Pleda reached slowly inside his shirt and took out the map. He lifted it so it could be plainly seen, then threw it on the ground. Nicely pitched; about halfway between him and the men. The soldier on the right sighed, got up, retrieved it and gave it to the handsome man.
“This is no good,” he said. “It’s ruined; I can’t read it.”
Pleda smiled. “No, you can’t,” he said. “But I can remember what was on it.”
The handsome man nodded slowly, as if in approval. “Of course you can,” he said. “And there’s only enough flour in your jar to last us a day or two, so if we kill you we’re killing ourselves. But you know where the nearest village is. You’re not the least bit lost, and your friend there’s talking nonsense. Well?”
Pleda was still smiling. “If you’re lost in the wilderness,” he said, “why bother lugging those chairs around with you? Why not dump them?”
“I like to sit down in a civilised manner. They carry them because I tell them to. Well?”
“I know where the nearest village is,” Pleda said. “He only said we’re lost because it’s his village. He doesn’t want to lead the likes of you there. He’d rather die than betray his family and friends. Me—” Pleda shrugged. “Screw them.”
The handsome man looked at Musen, who was still kneeling; he’s got a knife or something, Pleda realised, something he can throw; he’s doing mental geometry. The man on the handsome man’s left said, “We don’t need both of them, do we?”
“Yes,” Pleda said, “you do.”
“I don’t think so,” the handsome man said. “Gatho, shoot the boy.”
The archer took an arrow from the quiver at his waist. Musen stood up and threw. It was a knife – he’d had it hidden in the bandages of his sling, though Pleda had looked for it when the boy was asleep and hadn’t found it – and it didn’t fly true. Rather a lot to ask at that range. Instead, it hit the archer’s cheek side on, cutting him deeply and making him drop his bow. Oh for God’s sake, Pleda thought. Here we go.
As he bounded forward, Pleda cast his mind back to the course he’d been on, five years ago, at the Institute. The secret of the Belot brothers’ success, they’d told him, was their ability to see the battlefield as a schematic, a diagram. Senza Belot had once described it as superimposing an imaginary grid on to the battlefield, turning real life into a chess game. Now you try it, the instructor had said. And Pleda had tried, ever so hard, but he simply couldn’t do it. Wrong sort of mind, they’d told him. Not everyone can do it. Not to worry.
Maybe, back at the Institute, all he’d lacked was motivation. The lines of the grid formed instantly, each square representing a quantity of both space and time. Another thing they’d told him was that a fight is a fluid, rather than a collection of colliding solids; a fight flows, it has tides and currents, and it’s vital not to let yourself get swept away. That probably meant something too, but he still didn’t get it.
The handsome man was standing up; the soldier on his right hadn’t quite realised what was happening. The other standing man was out of it for now, and so was the archer. Pleda made for the soldier on the left, who was standing up and drawing his sword at the same time. He got to him just as the tip of the sword cleared the scabbard; he grabbed his wrist and continued the draw for him, sliding the cutting edge under the point of his chin. The soldier stumbled backward, tripped on his chair and went sprawling, leaving the sword in Pleda’s hand. The archer was so close he could have cut him straight away, but he wasn’t an immediate threat; Pleda swung round, but the handsome man wasn’t there. Instead, the right-hand soldier was on his feet, backing up to give himself a bit of room. He was dangerous. Pleda jabbed at his face, just enough to keep him at a distance, then pivoted on his back foot to bring himself face to face with the standing soldier on the right. He’d just drawn; his sword hand was raised at shoulder height, and he was wide open. All that bloody armour; Pleda tried a fast, light jab at his head and hit him in the mouth; the sword point jarred on his teeth, drifted up and sliced into his top lip.
That’ll do, Pleda decided; he had his back to the boy and
couldn’t see what was happening to him, but the absence of the handsome man spoke for itself. He took three long steps back and made a half-turn. Sure enough, the handsome man was standing behind Musen, one arm round the boy’s throat, the other pressing a short knife to his neck.
“I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot,” the handsome man said, catching his breath. “Let’s start again. Allow me to introduce myself. My name’s Axeo. Who are you?”
Well, now. “Axeo,” Pleda said. “You’re—”
“Yes,” the handsome man snapped. “That’s me. And, no, I don’t look much like him. He takes after his father, and I’m the spit and image of our mother, or so people tell me. All right?”
Pleda grinned. “Actually, there is a resemblance, now I think of it. Same neck and shoulders. Of course, he’s that much taller.”
“Absolutely.” Axeo didn’t seem to like talking about it. “Now you know my name, let’s have yours.”
“I didn’t know you’d turned to crime.”
“It’s not something he wants people to know, oddly enough. But, yes, in the proclamations you see nailed up on doors I’m described as a robber and a thief. Not through choice. Personally, I prefer to think of myself as the last line of defence.”
Pleda wasn’t sure he understood that, but never mind. “I’m Pleda. He’s Musen.”
Axeo frowned. “Hang on, I know that name. Pleda Lanxifor. You’re the food-taster. Good Lord. Suddenly, everybody’s famous.”
“It’s a small world,” Pleda agreed. “Would you mind letting my friend go now, please?”
Axeo glanced at his companions, who were still preoccupied with trying to stop the bleeding. “Put that sword down.”
“No chance.”
“Fine.” Axeo relaxed his grip and drew his hand away from Musen’s throat. Then he stopped. “Hello, what’s this?” he said, and pulled the gold tube out of Musen’s shirt. Musen took his chance and scrambled away. Axeo was entirely preoccupied with the tube.
“Let me get this straight,” he said, turning the tube round with the tips of his fingers. “The emperor’s food-taster, in a farm cart, with a load of government-issue camping gear and a gold despatch tube. Empty,” he added. Then he looked at Pleda. “A food-taster, but no food,” he said. “And a message tube with no message.”
Pleda sighed. “The boy steals things,” he said. “He can’t help it.”
“That makes two of us,” Axeo said, tucking the tube in the pocket of his robe. “Would you mind telling me what you two are doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Visiting family,” Pleda said. “His family, in the village.”
“Of course. You?”
“I’m going to marry his sister.”
Axeo raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“I bloody well hope so. I paid twenty angels.”
Axeo nodded slowly. “I get you. Sight unseen?”
“Looks aren’t everything.”
Carefully, Axeo put the knife away in a fold of his robe. “In that case, let me be the first to congratulate you. I love weddings. Particularly,” he added, “weddings with lots and lots of food.”
Pleda glanced quickly at the soldiers. They were watching him, and he read them easily – we can take him, but we’ll get cut up some more, and one of us might not make it; do we really have to? The decision clearly rested with Axeo, which made Pleda think over what he knew about bandits and their tendency towards democracy. The last line of defence; curious way for a professional criminal to describe himself. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any food,” he said.
Axeo smiled. “Not enough to share.”
“Not if you’re walking,” Pleda said. “But if you were lucky enough to get a ride in a nice cart—”
All sorts of issues there, needless to say. From Pleda’s perspective, the essential question was, could Musen drive a team of horses? Inevitably, Axeo would be addressing the matter from a different angle. Not impossible, even so, that both parties could arrive at the same conclusion.
“Indeed,” Axeo said abruptly. “The hell with all this fighting, anyway. If I’d wanted to fight, I’d have stayed in the army. Isn’t that right, boys?”
They might be fiercely and unthinkingly loyal to Axeo; that didn’t mean they liked him. The looks on their faces suggested that, at that moment, they didn’t like him at all. That couldn’t have been lost on him, but he didn’t seem worried by it. Curious people, Pleda thought, can’t wait to be rid of them. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
The arrangements were fairly straightforward. The four soldiers, Axeo and Pleda rode in the back of the cart – they had to dump some of the gear, but no great loss; the soldiers and Axeo at the far end, Pleda with his back to the driver’s bench and the sword across his knees. Musen and the soldiers’ weapons sat on the driver’s bench. Axeo cheerfully handed over his knife, which Pleda took as definitive proof that he had another one. Still, wedged in between two of his friends in a cart that jolted horribly all the time, his capacity for sudden movement was somewhat diminished. Musen proved to be a competent driver, which was just as well.
“You’re sure you know the way,” Axeo asked, as they set off.
“Oh yes,” Pleda replied cheerfully. “I know this country like the back of my hand.”
Not long after midday, they saw the Greenstocks.
They’d been going steadily uphill for a long time; the gradient was so gentle they’d hardly noticed it until, quite suddenly, the ground seemed to fall away at their feet, and they were looking down a steep slope, on the other side of which was a river and, beyond that, mountains.
“We can’t get the cart down that,” said the archer.
“Don’t have to,” Pleda replied. “We follow the top of this ridge for a bit, parallel with the river until we see a gap in the hills on our right. Then we turn left. There’s a road,” Pleda added hopefully. “Takes us straight there.”
As a boy, Pleda had always loved the story about the boy who rescued an old woman from a lion, and the old woman turned out to be a witch, who gave him a magic something-or-other, whose special power was that everything he said thereafter turned out to be true. It was a ring, or a five-sided coin, or a walrus-ivory comb, or a pebble with a hole in it; something ordinary, anyway, something you might well pick up and forget about, and never realise you had. An hour before sunset, Pleda surreptitiously searched his pockets. He narrowed it down to the bit of old rag and the horn-handled penknife; could be either of those, or maybe, just possibly, it was luck or coincidence and not magic at all.
“There’s the road, look,” he said, pointing. “Bang opposite the Powder Hill pass, just like I said it would be.”
Axeo tried to stand up to get a better view, but a jolt sat him down again; he landed hard on the knee of the man next to him, who winced. “That’s all right, then,” he said. “Tell you what. Let’s stop here for the night and then carry on in the morning. Don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
They sat warily round a fire – Pleda wasn’t keen, because of the smoke, but Axeo insisted; they smashed up the cart’s tool box for firewood – and ate the last of the biscuits and some rock-hard dried sausage from the archer’s pack. Nobody seemed to be in any hurry to go to sleep. It was going to be a long night.
“Anybody fancy a game of cards?” Pleda said.
He’d got their attention. “Why not?” Axeo said, and reached in his pocket, from which he produced a beautiful ivory box with gilded hinges. “Should be enough light to see by for a little while.”
Pleda hadn’t expected that. Still, it wasn’t unreasonable for a thief to have a luxury item like a pack of cards, especially if it came in a valuable box. “Let’s play Bust,” he said. “Eastern rules?”
“Of course.” Axeo smiled. “We’re all patriots here, aren’t we?” He opened the box and took out the pack. “Here we go,” he said. “Three cards, face upwards.”
He dealt a card and suddenly Ple
da couldn’t breathe. He clenched his hands very tight and concentrated all his efforts on keeping his face straight and not staring. Axeo dealt quickly and with the easy fluency of long practice. Even in broad daylight, it would’ve been next to impossible, for anybody else, to see how he cheated.
“And three covered,” Axeo went on, dealing the face-down cards. “All right, here we go. Stuiver in and a penny raise.”
“Oh,” Musen said. “Are we playing for money?”
“Bless the child,” Axeo said.
“I don’t have any.”
Pleda dug in his pocket, found his purse, picked at the tie, pinched out the knot, emptied the purse on the ground, picked out a dozen quarters and flung them at him. Then, trying really hard not to let his hand shake, he took up his cards.
Seven of Arrows. Two of Spears. Poverty. His mouth was dry as a bone. “I’m in,” muttered the soldier to his left, and Pleda heard a coin chink. His turn. “Just a second,” he said. Two crows in the tree, and a jug, broken in three pieces.
“Come on,” Axeo said. “Before it gets too dark to see.”
“I’m thinking,” Pleda snapped. He forced himself to consider the cards tactically. With the open three, he had a pride in Arrows, Poverty and the Angel. “In and up twopence,” he said.
“Your turn.” Axeo was talking to Musen.
“I’m in.” The boy was frowning. “And raise a penny.”
The Angel’s crown had four fleurets. No question about it. The archer shook his head and folded. “In and up a penny,” Axeo said. “Right, I dealt, so you start.”
The soldier to Pleda’s left bought a card, threw away the Five of Arrows. Pleda snapped it up, dumped his two and raised twopence. Musen passed. Axeo bought two and threw them away again. The soldier passed. “Buy one,” Pleda said. Axeo handed him the Star-Crossed Lovers, which he dumped. Musen passed. “Right,” Axeo said. “Here’s a quarter says it’s my lucky day. Let’s meld.”
Pleda scrabbled on the ground, located a quarter by feel and flipped it into the middle. They all laid out. Axeo won; a run in Spears and the Ship. He was grinning. “Go again?”
