Savages

by K. J. Parker

  Devoutly hoped. Desperate man. Changed your tune somewhat, haven’t you?

  He took official notice of the evolution, but was too preoccupied with scrabbling to consider the issues in depth. Death in the abstract was one thing; he’d faced it, eye to eye, up there in the light, probably because none of it had sunk in properly yet. In the dark, in a confined space only just wider than his shoulders, death was absolutely out of the question as a viable option; something to be avoided at all costs, with every last fanatical breath and wriggle.

  No light; should be seeing light by now, unless the stupid bank’s caved in, or the pipe’s silted up three feet thick—which had happened the year before last; they’d had to break through with a crowbar and fish the silt out a handful at a time, lying on their faces in the stink. His bare feet—hadn’t noticed before, but they’d dragged him out of bed without giving him a chance to put his boots on; what does a dead man need with footwear, at that?—weren’t getting much traction as the pipe got wetter and greasier. Hell, he thought; if I slip and slide back—Somehow, he made up for the lack of grip with sheer force and energy, feeling the skin go on his palms, fingertips and toes. There should be light by now, surely—

  His left hand stopped in a soft, solid mass, so hard that he nearly broke his fingers. He clawed at it, recognising the texture of caked silt. The drains washed down a fine-grained sandy deposit, reddish brown, with the occasional small stone and clot of rotting leaf. He hooked his fingers into it and pulled out a gobbet; stopped, asked himself; where do I put this? No idea. Could be a few inches or two tons. He reached over his head and dumped it on the nape of his neck, and clawed out some more.

  But his chest was soaking wet; there was water, a faint trickle but (he felt with his right hand) moving. If a gentle dribble of summer runoff could get through, so could he. He clawed with both hands, dumping the spoil on his neck and hair, wriggling to shuffle it down his back and out of the way. After an amount of time he had no way of quantifying, he realised he was having to reach almost the full extent of his arm to get his hand into the silt. He shuffled forward into the cleared space, thinking; air. I can breathe, so air’s getting through as well as water. I can do this, if only—

  He scrabbled a handful, and his hand went through; and at the same moment he was suddenly, overwhelmingly bathed in light; just like the Invincible Sun in an icon. It washed over him like victory, steeping him in silver and gold; light, for crying out loud, the most glorious, the most wonderful thing—

  And of course it mattered. It all mattered, every damn thing. Saying otherwise was just being stupid.

  He stuck his wrist out into the precious light, and the horror crashed down on him like a wave. Dead, killed, murdered, burnt, taken away from him, everyone, everything that mattered, all gone, lost, dead; and there he lay in the mouth of his father’s drain, not dead, not buried, flooded and drenched in cruel, undeceivable light, and what the hell did he think he was playing at?

  But his lungs were gasping in gallons of air, and his heart, he could feel it, was hammering, and if any doubt lingered there was so much pain, in every bit of him, to remind him that he was still very much alive. Well, he thought, you had your chance, but now it looks like you’re stuck with it.

  Thanks, Dad. You and your ridiculous bloody hydraulics.

  Feeling incredibly stupid, he gouged away the rest of the silt and squeezed himself out of the hole, like a turd from the arse of a constipated man, and let his face drop forward into three quarters of an inch of liquid mud. Well, birth’s always messy. He allowed himself the calf’s ration of gasps of air, then wiggled and flopped his way out, until his legs were free and he was an autonomous, independent creature, a newborn, helpless as a blind kitten, bloody, barefoot and raw-palmed. He looked at his hands and thought, shit, what a mess. Then he looked up, for some reason, at the sky.

  Think, he told himself.

  Sighvat and his men; would they have any reason to hang around? Sighvat had said he wasn’t a thief, so presumably they weren’t still down there looting the place, and besides, they’d burnt the house, and the stuff in the barns was just commonplace, though still worth having, because everything is. Burying the dead; Sighvat might just do that if he thought it constituted common decency, but not if he’d decided leaving the carrion for the crows was a proper right and entitlement for the winner. More likely, he’d be concerned with rounding up and driving off the livestock, not a straightforward job and one that needed to be done and finished in time for him and his men to get back for afternoon milking. Life, after all, goes on.

  In which case; what would he have done? Assuming the traitor had told him where the herd was, they’d have ridden out to the long meadow, with a view to driving the stock back along the river, the quickest way back to Sighvat’s place. He’d also have sent a detachment—three men, possibly four—to fetch the sheep down from the moor. Most direct route for them would be along the top of the ridge, so if they chose to look down they’d see the house, possibly see a man in the yard. He realised he was making excuses; I don’t want to go back, he admitted to himself, I really don’t want to go back there ever again. And you don’t have to. Means you can’t sneak back to the barn for the stockman’s old coat and boots; no possessions whatsoever. A price worth paying, he decided. And besides, there’s still the linhay.

  Suddenly it was intolerable to stay there a moment longer. He had to go somewhere—where? Unlimited choice, more or less. Consider the world, and how very little of it is taken up by one farm. The linhay first, because grand gestures are all very well but one must be sensible. Then everywhere.

  His great-grandfather, who’d died before he was born, had built the linhay to store winter hay for the sheep. In really bad years, a shepherd could get snowed in up there for days at a time. Accordingly, his grandfather had decreed that there should always be a change of clothes, boots, firewood, basic tools and weapons up there, in the little loft, under the eaves where wandering layabouts wouldn’t think to look. Father had honoured the decree to the extent of not actively removing anything, so, in theory, there should be a complete set of the equipment necessary for a man to be human, bundled away up there in the roof.

  In theory.

  The coat, when he dug it out from under a thriving community of spiders, was distinctly theoretical. It had sleeves but no back, and when he tried to wriggle into it, the frayed cloth disintegrated, leaving him with two clothed arms and a bare body. He dumped it and spent a minute or so scrabbling the cobwebs out of the mud he was caked with. The boots were as stiff as wood, but soaking would fix that. The shirt was rotten through, but curiously the trousers had made it, apart from a broad hole over the left knee. The woollen mittens and hat were a grey fuzzy pulp, but so what, it was summer. The horn mug and leather bottle were salvageable. The knife was a brown wafer of rust that crumpled in his hand like a dry leaf, but someone had loved the axe enough to wrap its head in greasy cloth; it would do, though the handle was woodwormed and rat-gnawed. The spearhead was rusted so thin he could push his finger through it. No matter. What possible use would he have had for a weapon, anyway?

  He made the voice in his head repeat that, slowly and loudly.

  No use whatsoever. If he’d had a weapon, he might possibly have felt obliged to walk down to Sighvat’s house and get killed trying to do something pointless. Instead, he looked at the flakes of rust and thought; can I really be bothered? The answer, he was pleased to find, was no. Killing Sighvat would mean going back (because it would raise the implicit question, why are you doing this, and that question would put him right back in the hole, in the ground, out of the light). Much better to go away instead, and keep going, at least until he fell over. Let’s do that, he thought. Let’s run away.

  Or rather walk; or, more realistically, hobble. Another splendid feature of the linhay was a big stone water trough. Its contents were green and stinking, but considerably cleaner than he was. He washed himself as best he could, until his whole b
ody smelt of green slime, and dunked the boots in the trough to soften up.

  They proved to be rather too big, so he stuffed them with bracken until they moved more or less in time with his foot. He washed the shirt and trousers he’d been wearing, squeezed out as much green water as he could, and put them back on; the trousers from the roof would do for best, he decided, in case he found himself attending any weddings or other formal occasions. He wrapped the axe, mug and bottle in one of the sleeves of the coat; something to carry, which gave him the illusion of still being a man of property. So, he thought. Time to go.

  Half an hour’s walking brought him to the boundary of his, what used to be his land. The idea was to go straight across the moor as quickly as possible and straight on into the wood. Because it was so long and narrow, occupying the whole uselessly steep side of the valley, by the time he came out the other side he’d be in places where people wouldn’t know him and he wouldn’t know them, unless he was unfortunate enough to run into a major landowner. From there; well, it didn’t matter, but his inclination would be to keep going until he reached the coast; at which point, his unlimited choice would be somewhat restricted by the sea, and maybe he could stop, sit down and pull himself together. Or not, as the mood took him.

  Now here’s a proposition, he thought. Can something be untrue if no witnesses can be called to testify against it? No witnesses, no case. Can something be true if I’m the only witness? I’m a fallible man, God knows, with a less than perfect memory. Wasn’t there that crazy old man once, other side of Bluegates, who was absolutely convinced he was the rightful king of the Vesani? If only I know something, how can it possibly be true?

  The boundary was a low wall, neglected (but that wasn’t his problem any more). He grazed his calf scrambling over it, as though it was determined to bite him before it let him go.

  When Calojan was a young lieutenant, two years out of the Institute, his unit was posted to northern Permia. Their function was simply to show strength on the border (who they were showing it to was never entirely clear) and most days were spent in camp, two miles outside the only settlement in those parts which could plausibly call itself a city. Usually when his fellow subalterns suggested that he join them in a trip to the city’s one and only brothel—magnificently if obscurely named the College of Essential Arts and Sciences—he made excuses; partly because, left to himself, he’d rather read a book; partly because his family background made it more than likely that such invitations masked some laboured attempt at a practical joke at his expense. There came a point, however, when his evasions began to be talked about, prompting a degree of speculation which the colonel decided was potentially disruptive. Colonel Ortheric rather liked Calojan, though he was fairly sure he didn’t understand him; but he knew from bitter experience how dangerous it could be to have an unpopular officer in the chain of command. Fortunately, as he saw it, the matter was susceptible to a simple and painless solution—

  “To clarify.” Calojan was giving him the look he’d perfected recently; comfortably the right side of dumb insolence, but easily achieving the same effect. “You’re ordering me to go to the brothel.”

  “Yes,” Ortheric replied.

  “Sir.”

  Ortheric’s face cracked into a grin. He’d cultivated it; the smile-in-spite-of-himself, military and human at the same time. “Don’t give me all that,” he said. “It’s like my mother used to say about childrens’ parties. You’ll enjoy it when you get there.”

  “Sir.”

  It was a feature of Calojan’s style (you had to use the word) that he never said sir except as a rebuke. He had a marvellous knack of phrasing things so as to be able to avoid the customary military civilities without actually infringing regulations. Ortheric had tried to figure out how he did it, so as to do the same himself, but the secret remained elusive and he didn’t like to ask for instructions. Ortheric liked clever officers, in spite of the difficulties they caused.

  “You know your trouble,” he said. “You’re in that awkward no-man’s-land between leaving the Institute and getting your first command. In five years time you’ll have your own outfit in some godforsaken remote corner somewhere, and you won’t have to make yourself pleasant to anyone, and at that time I confidently predict you’ll soar like a bird and leave the rest of us poor plodders for dead. Until then, I’m afraid, you need to make an effort and make people like you. I’m very sorry, but it’s got to be done. Understood?”

  For the first time since Ortheric had known him, Calojan replied with a broad, warm smile. “Permission to speak—”

  “Oh, get on with it.”

  Calojan nodded; then he sat down on the edge of Ortheric’s desk and poured them both a drink. Ortheric hesitated—like everything Calojan did, it was a gambit, a calculated tactical move—then took the glass Calojan had poured for him, muttered “Cheers”, swallowed half of it and immediately felt better. “Well?” he said.

  Calojan took a moment to marshal his words, then said, “It’s not really that I think I’m better than everyone else. I know I come across that way sometimes.”

  “All the time,” Ortheric said. “Except occasionally when you’re asleep.”

  Calojan nodded. “The fact is,” he went on, “I act that way because I’ve spent my life being made aware that I’m worse than everyone else, because of my father. Trying to redress the balance, I overdo it. When you’re pushing a huge boulder uphill, it’s hard to remember not to go too fast.”

  It was Ortheric’s turn to choose his words carefully. “People respect you,” he said, “because of your abilities. As far as the men are concerned, that’s really all that matters. They’ll follow you and love you because you’ll win battles without getting them killed. Where your brother officers are concerned, that same ability will make you extremely unpopular. Once you’ve been promoted a few times it won’t matter so much, because they won’t be your brothers any more, they’ll be your subordinates, and respect will do just fine. Until then, you have to make the effort. Battles, wars and cities have been lost because junior officers can’t stand one another. It’s a bloody stupid reason for getting men killed, and I don’t want it happening here.” He paused, and softened his voice a little. “You know all that perfectly well,” he said. “You don’t need to be told.”

  Calojan frowned, then nodded. “You’re perfectly right,” he said. “I should know better. Only—” He tried not to pull a face, almost succeeded. “Does it have to be the brothel? They’ll make jokes—”

  “Of course they will,” Ortheric said. “And you’ll give them every opportunity to do so. That’s the point. Well, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. Sir,” he added, and grinned.

  So, the next time he was asked, Calojan said yes, why not, and his comrades in arms (who’d been expecting the usual prevarications) were slightly stunned, then mildly jubilant, as though they’d just won something. During the week before the scheduled expedition, Calojan also made a point of losing at chess (twice) and being late on parade (once). He did these things awkwardly, like a right-handed archer trying to shoot left-handed, so that nobody was in any doubt that he was making an effort. It was a gamble; like all Calojan’s gambles, it worked.

  “I recommend you try Eupraxia,” Goltuhar said sagely. “She’d be just right for you. Nice easy pace and a good turn of speed for the finish.” He poured himself another drink from the jug. “Or there’s Joffa, if you fancy a challenge.”

  “Excuse me,” Athanalaric objected. “She’s mine. Besides, Joffa’s strictly postgraduate stuff. You want something more entry-level, like Corduza, or that redhead, what’s her name?”

  “Brother Calojan’s far more advanced than that,” Ferrio said. “Expert, bound to be. After all, his dad wrote the book.”

  There was a very brief moment of extreme tension. Then Calojan frowned, and said, “Well, you know what they say about cobblers’ children. Gentlemen, I’m entirely in your hands. Whatever you recommend will be jus
t fine with me.”

  There followed ten minutes of lively debate; then Atzel, a quiet first lieutenant of sappers who hadn’t spoken yet, said, “Surely it’s obvious. Stothia. Only possible choice.”

  Dead silence; then everyone began to laugh. Then the motion was put to the vote and carried unanimously.

  “Excuse me,” Calojan said, and the slight panic in his voice was very probably genuine. “What’s so special about—?”

  They grinned at him. “You’ll see,” they said.

  At first he assumed it was just that she was very, very tall; which made sense, since he was the shortest officer in the regiment. She was also ten years older than him and very beautiful. He sat down—the chair, not the bed—and made a show of wincing. “The thing is—” he said.

  She smiled at him. “You’ve hurt your back,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said gratefully, “actually it’s killing me, but I didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of the others, so—”

  She nodded. “You must be Calojan,” she said.

  He blinked. “They—”

  “Talk about you, yes.”

  “Ah.”

  “I can see why.” She frowned analytically. “You get on their nerves.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “You do it on purpose.”

  He thought before answering. “I suppose I do, yes. Partly because—”