by K. J. Parker
He got a bit overambitious after that and went straight on to eight, the Castle of God. The castle ended up looking like it was falling backwards. He thought about that, and decided it probably wasn’t a bad thing. He spent a whole day on the besieging army, now that he had a rather better idea of what soldiers actually looked like. The defenders were Rhus archers, of course, and the attackers were Blueskins, though he decided not to try shading them in, because that would just look strange. The figures were too big for the castle, but they’d been like that in the Master’s pack, so that was probably all right.
Eventually, the day came when there was only one left to do, the one he’d been putting off. Five, the Drowned Woman. Well, yes; but it had to be done.
In the event it came out really well. He drew her floating on her back (not as he remembered), with a flower in her left hand, her eyes closed, her hair spread out round her on the surface of the water. Properly speaking, the sun-in-glory should’ve been overhead – for noon, the Great Noontide – but he put it well over to the right, for mid-afternoon, the only personal concession, but he felt it was the least he could do. As he drew the last strokes and inked in the number he was almost shaking. He told himself it was because he was scared of dropping a blot off the pen and ruining the whole thing at the last minute. When he pulled his head back to look at the finished article, he simply couldn’t say if it looked like her or not. It was too long ago, after all, and he’d pictured it so often in his mind, he no longer had any idea what he was remembering.
Then he hung them up to dry from a string, each one fastened by a peg of green hazel, and went out to find a suitable box. Luckily, the major had one; he kept pens in it. The old man gave him three rials for the lot.
And then, after all that, he found out that the quartermaster-sergeant had a pack. They were coloured, just like the Master’s, and drawn on the same light, not-wood stuff, and the box was rosewood with a brass clasp. But for some reason Musen preferred his own, and let him keep them.
“The Moon reversed,” the quartermaster-sergeant said. “That means you’re going on a long journey.”
He was making it up as he went along. Fortunately the lieutenant of engineers wasn’t a craftsman and knew no better. “Does that mean I’m going to get posted back home?”
“Let’s see, shall we?” The quartermaster-sergeant turned up the next card. Number three, Shipwreck, natural. “Oh dear,” the quartermaster-sergeant said. “Well. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”
Musen made himself stay quiet. Shipwreck, natural is best interpreted as resourcefulness in the face of adversity, an opportunity disguised as a misfortune; that’s if you believe the pack is for fortune-telling, which only fools do.
The lieutenant looked miserable. “So if I get offered a posting back home I should turn it down, is that it?”
The quartermaster-sergeant gave him a wise look, and turned up the last card. “Well, that’s good,” he said. “Number twenty. True Love.”
The lieutenant cheered up at once, and Musen looked away. Number twenty, the Wedding, not True Love, coming after the Moon and the Dragon reversed, could only be bad; the forced marriage, unhappiness, disaster, coming at the very end of the sequence quite possibly death. Musen, who really didn’t believe in fortune-telling, couldn’t help shivering a little. Still, it served them both right, for abusing the Mystery. “That’ll be three rials,” the sergeant said, and Musen heard the sound of coins on wood. Then again, he thought, if someone’s stupid enough to pay money for a load of old rubbish, why not? And he had his own pack now—
No, couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be right. The lieutenant went to the bar and paid, his tab and the sergeant’s. Musen got up to leave, but the sergeant was between him and the door.
“So,” the sergeant said. “What’s your game, then?”
“What?”
“I saw you,” the sergeant said, “sitting there pulling faces the whole time, like you’d got the runs. I’m doing a bit of business here. What’s your problem?”
It doesn’t matter, Musen thought. And I’m here on sufferance, I need for these people to like me. Most of all, I need not to make life difficult for the major. And then he heard himself say, “You shouldn’t be doing that.”
“You what?”
“You’re a craftsman. You’re using the pack to take money off people. That’s wrong.”
“You what?”
I really need to stop now, Musen thought. “The pack’s special,” he said. “If you do that stuff, you shouldn’t be in the craft.”
The sergeant was a head shorter than Musen, and not much above half his weight. The first punch – solar plexus, inch-perfect – drained all the breath out of his body. The second one landed Musen on the floor. It was some time before he realised where the sergeant had hit him: the point of the chin, for the record. A boot in the pit of the stomach came after that, but by then he was too far out of it to care.
“Arsehole.” The sergeant stepped over him and left.
Later, when the world came back and stopped moving, Musen took proper note of the fact that no one came to help him up or see how he was, though that seemed to be the usual etiquette after fights. Curiously, none of the twelve or so men in the place seemed to have noticed that he’d been knocked down, or that he was making a pretty poor job of walking to the door. You didn’t need to be a Master to interpret those signs. Pity about that, Musen thought. He got out into the air, sat down with his back to the wall and concentrated on his breathing.
That’s what an unquenchable thirst for esoteric knowledge gets you, said the voice in his head. He disagreed. It wasn’t the unquenchable thirst, it was the being too stupid to keep his face shut. The question was whether the damage he’d done could be put right, or whether it was permanent, meaning it was now time to move on. Probably the latter – he wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was pretty certain. In which case, where to?
Merebarton. Across the moor to the country of the walking dead. Merebarton wasn’t an option any more. There was no guarantee it’d even be there. What if he were to make it back across the moor, only to find the houses empty, the roofs dragged off or burned, the people dead in the street? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to overlook that, and it made sense not to do anything that would force him to hate the enemy; not if they were winning. The trouble was, thanks to the war, he couldn’t rely on anywhere still being there – just empty land, from sea to shining sea.
When he felt well enough to stand, he got up and made his way back to the barracks, weaving and staggering like a drunk. As soon as he closed his eyes, he was fast asleep.
On the major’s desk was a little bronze statue: a blacksmith, bent over his anvil, hammer hand raised, tong hand steadying the work on the anvil, forging a human heart. On the base, in small but elegant lettering: Am I not a man and a brother?
“You’re starting to get on my nerves,” Pieres said. “I had to spend half an hour this morning calming down Sergeant Egles. He’s agreed to let the whole thing drop—”
“He hit me.”
“You insulted him,” Pieres replied angrily. “You cast aspersions on his worthiness to be a craftsman. That makes it an honour claim, recognised as such by military law. He was perfectly within his rights to challenge you, and you wouldn’t have lasted two minutes. Fortunately, as I said, I managed to calm him down. Believe it or not, I do have other things to do with my time.”
“He was fortune-telling,” Musen said, “with the pack. He was making it up, and he took money off that lieutenant. That’s wrong.”
“Yes, well.” Pieres scowled at him. “I did actually point out to the sergeant that obtaining money by deception from a superior officer is a court-martial offence, and if he survived the duel I’d have no option, etcetera. But you know what? I couldn’t give a damn. Egles is a good soldier; he runs the stores damned efficiently, and you’re a complete waste of space. I wish he’d called you out on the spot and killed you, and then we’d be rid of
you and I wouldn’t have had to do anything about it. So,” he went on, “I’m giving you fair warning. Don’t make trouble. You talk about abusing the craft. Seems to me that’s all you’ve done since you got here.”
Am I not a man and a brother? Only, apparently, up to a point. “I’m sorry,” Musen said.
Pieres swallowed a mouthful of water. Rather a nice cup: silver, embossed with vine leaves. On a major’s pay, Musen doubted he’d come by it honestly. He made a mental note of it. “First,” Pieres said, “you apologise to Sergeant Egles. Next, for God’s sake find yourself something to do. I can’t have paroled enemy prisoners wandering around the post all day like rich men’s sons, it’s ridiculous. So make yourself useful, understood?”
No hard feelings, the sergeant said. By that point, the bottle was less than a quarter full. He’d traded the old man two mirrors, the sergeant’s hairbrush and a solid silver buckle for it.
“No, I mean it,” Musen said. “And to make it up to you, I’d like to do something to help out. Round the stores, maybe.”
The sergeant squinted at him. “Like what?”
“Fetching, carrying, heavy lifting. Anything you tell me to.”
The sergeant looked at the bottle, thought better of it. “What the hell,” he said. “Great big bastard like you, why not? I spend half my life lugging stupid great boxes around. And fuck it, you’re a craftsman.” He paused, and a cunning look covered his face. “Pieres gave you a hard time, did he?”
“Just a little bit.”
“Nah, he’s all right. All fart and no turd. You don’t want to take any notice. All right, then. Meet me up the stores after first change tomorrow.”
Everything is a matter of perspective; from one point of view, the stores was an earthly paradise. A long, wide, low-roofed shed crammed with boxes, in the sort of chaotic mess that suggested it was under the authority of someone who didn’t have quite enough time to do everything that was asked of him. Inside the boxes, all manner of useful and desirable objects. Two huge ledgers on the table by the window: Stores In and Stores Out. At each weekly audit, they balanced exactly, but only because Egles habitually under-recorded the incomings; if Supply delivered thirty-six gross boots, black, cavalry, medium, he recorded thirty gross in Stores In, which allowed a civilised margin of six gross for pilfering, private enterprise and genuine misplacement. Musen thought about the old man’s misgivings about handling military goods, and dismissed it as an outsider’s ignorance. Who the hell could ever possibly find out, except Egles, and he was in no position to get self-righteous about anything. As for finding an outlet for all this stuff, there was a campful of eager customers on the doorstep. Egles never issued anything for free if he could help it. So, sod the old man and his incessant bloody haggling. Why bother with civilians when you can do business with the military?
“You’re really into this craft stuff, aren’t you?” Egles said to him, one day after they’d unloaded a consignment from Supply.
Musen was tired and his back hurt. “I guess so, yes.”
Slight hesitation; not something he’d usually associate with Egles. “Do you think you could read the pack for me? Find out if I’m going to get posted home soon?”
I could explain, he thought. The pack is not for telling fortunes. “Sure,” he said.
“Thanks. I’d like that. When can we do it?”
Furthermore, if you mess with the pack, the pack will mess with you. The Master hadn’t put it quite like that, of course. “Tonight, after mess call.”
“Thanks.”
Later he broke the bad news to the old man, who didn’t seem unduly bothered. As a parting gesture, he tried to sell him eight pairs of gloves, brown, non-commissioned officers’. “Nah,” the old man said. “They’re army. You can tell by the stitching.”
“You could say they’re off dead bodies. It’s legal if they’re battlefield.”
“Don’t be stupid, son. Anyone can tell they’re unissued.”
“Dirty them up a bit.”
“You know what they do to you if you get caught receiving army stuff?”
“Have them,” Musen sighed. “No charge. Present. Keep your hands warm.”
That was different. “All right.”
“My pleasure.” For what we are about to receive, may He make us duly thankful. “If I get any civilian stuff—”
“What about the silks? You said you’d get some more.”
He put the gloves down by the old man’s feet. He left them there. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I got a buyer. But you need to get a move on.”
He never expected to see the old man again. But he did, a week later. He was with three other men, hanging from a big ash tree outside the Prefecture. He’d been there some time, but Musen knew him at once, if only by the smell of his feet.
“There was a woman in here looking for you.”
That made no sense. Musen hadn’t seen a woman, young or old, rich or poor, since the secret village on the moor. He’d sort of assumed they were extinct. “When?”
“Just now. You only missed her by a minute.”
Damn, Musen thought; and then it occurred to him that not all surprises are pleasant. “Did she say what she wanted?”
Egles shook his head. “Left something for you.”
On the bench where the soldiers sat while they were waiting. Just a sack, folded very small. “What is it?”
“How would I know?”
Egles was watching him out of the corner of his eye, a sort of oblique stare of great intensity. He picked up the sack and stuffed it in his coat pocket. “You want to do another reading tonight?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Musen managed not to sigh. It had come as a surprise to him how many, how very many ways there were of arranging the cards of the pack to spell out the same message: promotion, followed by a posting back home. The weird thing was, Egles never tired of it. Each time, his face lit up, his eyes sparkled and he bought drinks afterwards without being asked. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to see what it is?”
“Liniment,” Musen said. “For my back. Don’t suppose it’ll work, mind. Nothing works on my back.”
“Could I try some?” Egles asked. “My back’s been killing me lately. I think it’s the hot weather.”
“Sure. But I’ll give it a go first, just in case it brings you up in boils or something.”
He made a mental note: back wall, fifth shelf down, siege catapult winch ratchet lubricating grease, two-ounce pots; he’d have to scrape it out and put it in something else first. “You’re too young to have a bad back,” Egles was saying. “Me, I’ve had backs for years. It’s the lifting.”
“Maybe you should transfer,” Musen said. “Go back on the line or something.”
“What, with your load of bastards out there trying to kill me? Catch me doing that, son.”
He had to wait the rest of the day before he was able to get some peace; in the latrine, while everyone was in the mess hall. He unfolded the sack. It seemed to be empty. Then he felt something right at the bottom, cloth, and pulled it out. A silk handkerchief, with faint traces of blood.
I got a buyer; practically the last words the old man had said to him. Now he came to think of it, the old man had mentioned it several times; the only line of goods he’d specifically asked for. But if the woman was the buyer, why had she sent this one back?
He tried to remember where he’d got it from. That was the trouble: so many things passed through his hands these days, some of them from the soldiers, some from locked-up houses, a few bits and pieces he’d genuinely found in the street. He racked his brains, tried to picture himself acquiring it. Then he remembered. Teucer; it had been sticking out of Teucer’s pocket, the day after they left the hidden village. And he hadn’t had it before – Musen had been quite familiar with all Teucer’s possessions, at all times – so he must have got it there, somehow. A strange thing to find in
a cut-off village in a fold of the moors, so remote that they didn’t even know about the craft. Sure as hell hadn’t been made there, so it had to have come from outside. He cursed Teucer for getting him in trouble, and then not being there when he was needed.
Then he examined the handkerchief, looking for anything distinctive. Nothing he could see; no embroidered monogram or anything like that. It was a sort of vague buttermilk colour, and the stains were very slight, a repeating pattern, in one corner, almost as though something had been wrapped up in it.
He thought of the old man hanging on the tree and shuddered. But that had been for receiving military stores, and this was nothing to do with the army. Only missed her by a minute, Egles had said. He wasn’t sure if he was sad or happy about that. Also, it wasn’t like Egles just to say “a woman”. He was well aware of the sergeant’s views on women, their uses and drawbacks, and “woman” was a surprisingly neutral term, coming from him. That suggested there had been something about her that had put Egles on his guard, at the very least. He fished out the sock he kept his money in, feeling the coins through the cloth, though he knew the total without needing to check – six gold angels and thirty silver rials, a worthwhile sum (and all through his own diligence and industry, in such a short space of time – and his aunts reckoned he’d never amount to anything) but not nearly enough to represent a stake or a fresh start somewhere, even if there was anywhere in this uncannily emptying world worth going to. Besides, making a run for it just because an unidentified woman had sent him a hanky was probably over-reacting. Probably.
He lay awake trying to make sense of it, eventually fell asleep, overslept and woke up late for work, with an eyeful of sun streaming in through the hayloft door. He pulled on his coat – quick check to make sure his money was still there, yes, good – and stumbled down the ladder.
