by K. J. Parker
Poldarn shifted slightly; he was starting to get cramp in his knee. 'Never mind,' he said. 'I think I've reached the point where I'm not really bothered any more.'
'Nobody ever goes that far,' she said flatly. 'I should know.'
'Really? I expect you've had an interesting life, if you're anything like your sister.'
He'd intended to provoke her; not this much, though. 'You think I'm like her? Oh, please!' Noja's anger was so fierce that he could almost see it, glowing in the dark like hot embers. 'I'm nothing like her, never have been, even when we were kids.'
'You're going to a lot of trouble on her behalf, if you don't even like her.'
'She's my sister.' No, she was concealing something. Whatever she was up to, she wasn't doing it just to help Xipho. Bombarded with so many obscure fragments of data, Poldarn was too confused to know what to do with this one; he tucked it away in his mind, hoping he'd remember it as and when it became relevant.
'And Ciana's your brother.' He let that one hang, but she didn't seem to be reacting. Shot in the dark, anyhow. 'Was this all his idea, or does he just do what his big sisters tell him to?'
Her voice cooled down a little. 'What I told you was the truth. It was Ciana who brought me out here when our parents wanted me to marry some farmer.' She made it sound like some sort of nasty, crawling insect. 'I guess you could say he's the white sheep of the family. He genuinely went to Tulice for the hunting.'
'Really.'.
'Really.' Now Noja didn't sound quite so tense; maybe because this part of her story was entirely true? Hard to tell, especially in the dark. 'And when his good friend the Chaplain in Ordinary asked if he could give him a lift as far as Falcata, he was only too pleased, naturally: doing favours for Cleapho is good business. So when Cleapho asked him for one other little favour-very much in his line, hunting something down in a forest-'
'Me. That's interesting. How did he know where to look?'
Noja laughed prettily. Nice voice; wasted on her. 'Really, you're too entertaining for words. You don't see it, do you?'
'Enlighten me.'
He heard her take a deep breath. 'Chaplain Cleapho wants to get you to Torcea. But he knows you ever so well, from the old days; and he remembers how you fought your way past-well, past the Amathy house men at the inn in Sansory. He knows that you're as slippery as a buttered eel. The only way to get you here is to make you want to come here; and the only way to do that is to get you to think that what you're actually doing is running away-running here, for safety. Hence the pantomime. That loathsome Gain Aciava finds you and keeps you at that foundry place-'
'Dui Chirra.'
'Like it matters. He finds you, keeps you in play there like an angler with a fish that's too big to pull in straight away. Of course, you would have to be there, of all places, where they're making the weapons. That imbecile Muno Silsny hears about you-the brave hero who saved his life.' Noja sighed. 'Fat lot of good it did him, because as soon as he'd figured out who you were, he had to go. Terrible waste of time and effort: Cleapho brought him on, trained him up, from nonentity to commander-in-chief virtually overnight, because he needed someone in that position who'd do as he was told and never think twice. Anyway, that's all done with; Cleapho got rid of him, and just as well as it turned out. But all his plans got screwed up because of it, and by the time General Muno was out of the way, the weapon thing was far too well advanced. Simply bursting in there and flushing you out like a rabbit was out of the question with all those soldiers there. So he had to be clever about it-and wasn't he ever that. Of course he had good help-Aciava, and that strange man, Spen-something-'
'Spenno.'
'Whatever. He flushed you out of Dui Chirra, just in the nick of time-'
'Really?' Poldarn interrupted. 'Why?'.
'You don't need to know why, but what the hell. Because he didn't want you trapped in there when his other man-another old school chum of yours, incidentally-captured it, by force, with some bunch of religious zealots he'd somehow turned into an army. See what I mean about clever? No fool, Cleapho. He wanted you in Torcea, and having the weapons safely kept out of harm's way would be nice too; lo and behold, he's got both. Once you were out of Dui What's-its-name and on the loose, it was child's play to shoo you along to where you had to go. It meant bringing forward the business with Falcata a month or two, but that was no big deal.'
'Falcata?' Poldarn didn't need the explanation, but for some reason he wanted a confession from somebody. 'You mean destroying it.'
'Well, yes. That was part of the plan from way back: make it look like your disgusting compatriots are on the loose again, hence a state of national emergency, and Cleapho can start moving troops to where they need to be, recruiting his strange bedfellows, all the stuff that needs to be done but which is such a bother to justify during peacetime. And thanks to the new man, who's a real treasure by all accounts, it was easy, and you went scampering straight into Cleapho's arms, thinking you were escaping.'
Poldarn scowled, grateful that Noja couldn't see his face. 'But that doesn't make any sense,' he said. 'Because I escaped from him, too.'
'Silly.' She was finding him amusing again. 'That's like saying the ball escapes from the stick when you smash it into the goal. He told you just enough to get you all worked up and determined-to do what he wanted, of course, without knowing that was what you were doing-and then let you slip away, to where Ciana was waiting with his professional huntsmen and tracker dogs and God only knows what, to bring you in and fetch you across the Bay. And here you are. By rights, right now you should be like an arrow on the string, fully drawn and aimed at Tazencius, and tomorrow we let you fly and, well, job done. But I have to go and screw it up, by telling you stories about Xipho as a little girl.'
Poldarn allowed for a moment's silence before speaking. 'I see,' he said. 'You've made rather a mess of things.'
'Yes.' Naturally Noja sounded bitter. 'And now, God only knows what I'm going to do. First thing tomorrow we're supposed to go to Beal, where you're meant to give me the slip, sneak through the guards using all the cunning tricks they taught you at school, and kill the Emperor. Then Cleapho takes the throne, everybody else in the picture gets wiped out, and as soon as the wonderful new weapons have smashed the raider ships into kindling, nobody's going to give a toss about legitimacy of succession, all they'll care about is that the new Emperor just got rid of the raiders once and for all. Years and years of careful planning, and I would appear to have fucked it all up. That's very bad, you know.'
'Yes,' Poldarn said. 'So, what are you going to do now?'
A long sigh. 'I think that's probably up to you,' she said. 'Let's put it this way. If this was a perfect world, and you could do anything you wanted, what would you do tomorrow?'
'Easy,' Poldarn replied. 'I'd go to Beal and murder the Emperor.'
Was it the reply she'd been expecting? Or was she trying to figure out whether he was lying? 'Why would you want to do that?'
'Because he's Tazencius,' Poldarn replied smoothly. 'Because he grabbed hold of me when I was still just a kid, and he turned me into something evil; because he sold me his daughter-who loved me, so I'm led to believe, though I can't say as I remember. It's all his fault; and it seems to me that, since I'm probably not going to live long enough to pick any of this season's apples no matter what happens, I might as well go out doing something useful as sit back at Dui Chirra forging brackets and drinking bean-pod soup until someone turns up to kill me. True,' he went on, 'from what you've been saying it's something of a toss-up who's worse, Tazencius or Cleapho-not forgetting Feron Amathy, mind, he's another evil bastard. But I don't know where Cleapho or Feron Amathy are, whereas Tazencius is just down the road; I might be able to get to him, but probably I haven't got time to tackle either of the other two. When you prune it all down, it becomes nice and simple.'
'Oh.' Noja sounded worried. 'And what I just told you about Cleapho, manipulating you just as much as Tazencius ever did-'
&n
bsp; 'Not as much,' Poldarn interrupted, raising his voice. 'Nowhere near as much. He used me for, what, a few months; and anyhow, the damage had all been done by then. It wasn't Cleapho who shaped my character or chose my path in life for me, he's just a very unpleasant man who'll probably be the next Emperor. Probably a very good Emperor, because he's intelligent and organised and patient and all the other things emperors never are. Bloody good luck to him, in that case.'
(Yes, said the little voice in his head, but how did Cleapho arrange for Falcata to be destroyed? And who's the other man she mentioned?)
Noja stayed still and quiet for a very long time. 'Why should I believe you?' she said at last. 'What you said, it sounds like the sort of motive someone'd have in a book or a story, not the way a real person actually thinks.'
'Ah.' Poldarn tried to put the wry grin into his voice. 'Shows what you know. Maybe I really do believe I'm the god in the cart, like your sister wanted me to. Because if I did, wouldn't this be just about perfect? After bringing about the destruction of Falcata, I kill the Emperor and throw the Empire into bloody civil war; meanwhile the wonderful new weapon doesn't actually work, the raiders land unharmed and kill everybody who's left. Pretty good definition of the end of the world, don't you think?'
She sounded offended. 'Now you're treating me like I'm stupid,' she said. 'You don't believe that. You know-'
'What do I know? Only what I've seen. I've seen how everywhere I go, cities burn and people die, and all because of me-I don't do the burning and killing, but I'm always the cause. I'm the dog with a burning brush tied to its tail-my intentions don't matter, only the effect I have. So it was inevitable I'd come here, to Torcea, and wreck the place. And here I am. That's so perfect it's-well, religion.'
'You'd know more about that than me,' Noja replied. 'But you're just making all that up to be annoying-everybody knows there's no such thing as the god in the cart.'
'Do they?'
'Well, of course. It's just an old Morevich story that Cleapho dug out of some book and started putting around so that superstitious people'd panic. It's not even a genuine old story; some bunch of monks made it up to boost offertory revenue. Any intelligent person knows that.'
Poldarn laughed. 'It may not have been true when Cleapho made it up,' he replied. 'But doesn't it seem to you that it's true now? You know, religion, that sort of thing. After all, nobody knows how gods come to be born. Maybe what Cleapho did is how you make a god.' He sighed. 'We probably learned all about making gods in fourth year, but of course I don't remember.'
'No.' Noja sounded bored and annoyed. 'No gods, sorry. And the world isn't going to end. And the weapons will work.' Hesitation in her voice. 'Won't they? I mean, you were there, you aren't stupid. Will they work or won't they?'
Poldarn thought for a moment. 'I don't see why not,' he replied. 'Basically, it was Spenno who did it all, and I think if anybody could make a Poldarn's Flute, it'd be him. But that part of it's all a bit sloppy, isn't it? What if the Flutes work just fine, but they only manage to sink two ships out of two hundred? And besides, I don't believe the raiders will turn up at precisely the right moment to get blown out of the water, and I should know, I was there only a year or so ago-' He frowned. 'It's not the raiders he's thinking about, is it? He wants the Flutes to use against someone else.'
Noja didn't reply, and Poldarn saw no advantage in pressing the point: he wasn't interested, he'd just pointed out the discrepancy to keep her in play, like that angler with the heavy fish. 'Anyhow,' he said, when the silence was starting to get awkward, 'you can believe me or not, it's up to you. But how about this: if we go to Beal, if I'm not going there to kill Tazencius, what else would I have in mind? Go on, you tell me. I'm not going there to make my peace with him, we both know that; and the honey festival sounds like fun, but not enough to risk my life for.'
She was a long time in answering. 'You could try and run away.'
'I could've run away tonight,' Poldarn said. 'I could've killed your pathetic excuses for guards out there in the yard, easy as anything. But then I'd have had to steal a horse and ask the way to Beal. Too much like hard work.'
'Assuming Beal was where you wanted to go.' Assuming Gain Aciava was telling the truth; and Copis, and Cleapho, and Copis's sister who's just admitted she's a liar.
All right,' he said, 'I could've killed them and gone anywhere. But here I am.'
A long silence, unbroken until Noja sighed. 'Yes,' she said slowly, 'here you are.' She was looking at him as though she'd expected more. 'Did you really love her?' she asked.
'Sorry?' he said. 'Who are we talking about?'
Her face remained the same, but her eyes had taken the cold, like molten bronze setting in the mould, flawless and strong. 'My sister, of course. Did you really love her?'
Poldarn considered his answer. 'I honestly don't know,' he said.
'I see. So the child-'
'I loved her then,' he said. 'I suppose; I'm not entirely sure. It was more-well, I guess it was something like signing a formal contract between business partners, or a peace treaty. I know that when I thought she might've come to harm, at Deymeson, when the monks captured me, I was worried sick; it wasn't my main priority, but it was always at the back of my mind. But that was probably mostly because she was, at that point in time, my oldest friend; I mean, I'd met her only a few hours after I woke up in the river, and we'd been together ever since, on and off. That's something, but not love-' He frowned. 'Sorry,' he said, 'that probably sounds really bad. But I'm too tired to lie.'
'That's all right,' Noja said, sounding almost relieved. 'And before that, at school and so on. You can't remember?'
He shook his head. 'I've been told all sorts of things,' he said, 'and if it doesn't sound too crazy, I've had dreams about those days, which might be memories of some kind, or maybe not. But if I was in love with her, I don't remember.'
'So,' she went on, as if she hadn't heard him, 'when you married Tazencius's daughter, and she loved you, you don't remember if you were really in love with Xipho all the time? Or did you ever feel anything genuine for her-Lysalis, I mean.'
'I have no idea,' Poldarn said. 'The part of me that I'm still on speaking terms with reckons that if the worst thing I've ever done is either marry one girl while still being in love with another, or else ditch one girl because I've met someone I prefer, then it could be a lot worse.'
Noja stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. 'That's fair enough, I suppose,' she said. 'I mean, it wouldn't make you the most evil man in the world, or anything.'
Chapter Sixteen
Rain. Rain, just like bloody always. Rain, when he really didn't want it; because Runting had just woken him up out of his recurring nightmare, the one he was glad he could never remember when he woke up, and told him to get his trousers on, because the enemy were at the gates The enemy, he muttered to himself, at the gates. Which would've been just fine, absolutely no fucking problem, if it wasn't bloody raining. Because if only it was dry, the enemy at the gates would be the perfect test medium for the four finished, fettled, furnished, burnished, done and dusted but not actually yet test-fired Poldarn's Flutes sitting comfortably in their wooden cradles like cats on rugs on top of the watchtower. The defence of Dui Chirra would've gone down in history as the day when the world changed for ever; when all the art-of-war manuals and all the precepts of religion had to be rewritten, because a few hundred scruffs with four brass parsnips had beaten off the Empire's best troops led by the Empire's best general in the time it takes to boil a kettle. If only it wasn't raining.
Instead, Monach reflected bitterly, we're all going to be killed; and some other bugger, someone who hasn't had to put up with Spenno and Galand Dev and all the mind-meltingly annoying politics they go in for in this horrible place, is going to get all the glory and be a footnote in the appendix at the back of the history of the world. And And I wouldn't have let down my friends. That's the worst-no (he decided firmly as he dragged on his wet boots), no, dying's
going to be the worst thing, but failing Cordo, and Xipho, when they trusted me-the Earwig, they'll say, give him a simple job to do, and a weapon that sneezes hellfire and lightning to do it with, and he screws up, all because of a little spot of rain. Should've known better than to trust 'Are you coming or not?' someone was yelling: 'They're coming up the east road. There's bloody thousands of them.'
And why are wet boots so much harder to get your feet into than dry ones? That said, a man in charge, commander of the garrison of the most vital strategic point in the world, ought surely to be entitled to more than one pair of fucking boots Monach stumbled out of the drawing office, trying to find the right hole in his sword belt by feel alone and failing, and splashed through the puddles on his way to the watch-tower stair. People everywhere, of course; most of them foundrymen, standing about looking miserable, muttering, not showing any inclination to make themselves useful-damn it, better that they should be trying to open the gates and let the enemy in than just standing about getting under hard-working soldiers' feet. If they were actively hostile, we could massacre the whole useless lot of them, and then we'd only have the enemy to put up with Wet boots on the wet wooden stairs, squelch. Rain gets in your eyes, makes them blurry, stings. Up to the top of the stairs, up to the rampart-people getting out of his way, that's more like it-and look over, and-never seen so many people all together in one place before in my life. Not a parade in Sansory, or Torcea hiring fair, or Formal Service at the Chapel Royal, when everybody who's anybody piles into the great courtyard, pushing and shoving and trampling each other underfoot to get a seat and hear the Chaplain in Ordinary's sermon (Cordo, shooting his mouth off in front of all those people; must be a sight to make a pig laugh). Yes; you measure scenes like that by the thousand, but this is tens of thousands, a huge army The enemy, coming to get us, the defending garrison. Shit.
