by K. J. Parker
‘Thank you. That’s probably the nicest thing anybody’s ever said about me.’
‘Really?’
‘No,’ he explained, ‘that was a joke.’
‘Another lie? To make me feel cheerful?’
‘That’s right. Oh, come on,’ he added, ‘you people have jokes, I’ve heard you making them.’
‘I know. I was teasing you, but you seem to be a bit slow on the uptake today.’
It crossed Poldarn’s mind that he might have been better off sticking with Boarci. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘It was getting soaked to the skin the day before yesterday – I think I’m brewing up a really high-class cold. The silly thing is, I can’t remember having had one before. Weird at my time of life, having my first cold.’
‘You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly, I’m sure. I expect it’s like swimming, it’ll all come back to you once you start.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Still, you could help me get into the right frame of mind. What comes first?’
Elja thought for a moment. ‘Usually,’ she said, ‘you start off with a blocked nose, maybe a cough, some slight deafness even. A general feeling that your head’s been stuffed full of unbleached wool.’
‘That sounds familiar,’ he said, stumbling over a rock but recovering his balance quite well. ‘What about a slight headache? Is that orthodox?’
‘It’s not unknown, certainly,’ she said. ‘Though I’d tend to look for that in the next phase, along with the heavy sneezing, the runny nose, bleary eyes, that sort of thing.’
Poldarn pulled a face. ‘So that’s what I’ve got to look forward to,’ he said. ‘And do you get those things as well as the earlier stuff, the coughing and so on, or does one stop and the next one start?’
‘Oh no, they all happen at the same time. Though sometimes you’ll find that the runny nose clears up but the cough gets much worse. Followed,’ she added, ‘by a really horrible sore throat. That’s a nasty combination, believe me.’
‘I’m sure,’ Poldarn said despondently. ‘All right, so we’ve got as far as the sore throat. Then what?’
She sighed. ‘Downhill all the way from there,’ she said sadly. ‘Next your arms and legs swell right up, you get these horrible blisters breaking out all over your skin, followed by massive internal bleeding, blackouts, madness and finally death. And that’s assuming it doesn’t go bad on you and turn into pneumonia.’
‘Ah.’ He bit his lip tragically. ‘So how long do you think I’ve got? Give it to me straight, I can take it.’
She looked at him. ‘A case like yours, I’d say three days, four at the very most. It’s sad, really. I’d have enjoyed living at Haldersness.’
‘Would you?’ He heard something in his own voice, and quickly changed tack. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about colds,’ he said. ‘Have you ever had one yourself?’
‘Me? Loads of them.’
‘And did you die?’
‘Every time.’
He nodded. ‘Well, in that case I guess you know what you’re talking about.’
After that there was a slight awkwardness between them, as though one or the other of them had gone maybe a step too far, but neither was quite sure which of them it had been. Shortly after that, they came up against the worst quagmire yet: between two escarpments was a small, steep-sided defile that had completely filled up with mud. After standing and scowling at it for quite some time, they faced up to the fact that there was no way round it except going back down the road for half an hour and taking a long, gruelling detour up the back face of the western slope.
‘Marvellous,’ Elja sighed as they trudged uphill. ‘Now we’ve got no chance of getting there before it gets dark.’
Poldarn would’ve said something extremely coarse if he could’ve spared the breath. ‘I don’t like the idea of crashing around in the dark,’ he said. ‘We could walk into one of those bogs before we knew what’d hit us.’
‘That’s right,’ Elja said. ‘So I expect we’ll end up sleeping out again. I used to love doing that when I was a kid, but now I’m not so keen.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if I had a blanket, or if there was anything we could make a fire with,’ Poldarn groaned. ‘It’s bad enough now with this wind. Once the sun goes down, it’s going to be really bloody cold.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be telling me nice, cheerful things.’
‘Yes, but they wouldn’t be true.’
Elja furrowed her brows in studied thought. ‘Truth is a wonderful thing,’ she said, ‘and so is pea soup. You can get tired of both of them if you never have anything else.’
They tried very hard to make up time, but it was pointless; all they succeeded in doing was getting almost within sight of Haldersness by the time it got too dark for any more trekking to be safe. This time there wasn’t even one lonely thorn tree to sit under, so they had to make do with a small heap of rocks, the remnants of a long derelict cairn. The shelter it gave them from the wind was minimal verging on imaginary, but it felt better than sleeping out on the bare hillside, even if they did get just as cold and (when it rained briefly, around the middle of the night) wet.
As soon as they stopped, Elja went off without a word and joined the women on the other side of the cairn, leaving Poldarn on his own. He didn’t mind that too much; he’d been in company of one sort or another all day, and one of the few things he was enjoying about this forced march was the occasional moment of solitude. It was undeniably pleasant to be able to crouch down on the ground a few paces away from the others and clear his mind at last, since he had a great deal to think about. He didn’t manage it, though, since within a few heartbeats of getting moderately comfortable and closing his eyes, he was fast asleep.
When he woke up, his head was full of small pieces of a very unpleasant dream. He made a conscious effort to sweep them away, though he had a feeling that a few of them were still lurking in the inaccessible cracks and corners of his mind, like the last few tiny splinters of broken potsherd after you’ve dropped a plate or a cup, the ones you find with the soles of your bare feet three months later. It was broad daylight already, and there was a fine spray of moisture in the air, either a wet fog or low cloud. His knees and calves ached as he put his weight on them. Not far to go now, he told himself; but that was definitely another case of telling lies in order to cheer himself up – necessarily pointless when he was both the teller and the audience.
Long before Poldarn saw the farm, he located it by the mob of crows circling in the grey sky. He knew them pretty well by now; someone had walked them off their feed, and they were waiting for him to go away. He wasn’t sure what they could have been feeding on; either a newly sown field or a dead animal, he guessed, but there was no way of telling which at this distance. He hoped it was the former, of course, since all the livestock should be a long way away by now, and sowing would imply that the rain had washed off the ash and life was getting back to normal. Typical crows, he told himself, to be so annoyingly ambiguous. He was relieved when he came close enough to distinguish the brown of newly turned earth directly underneath the cloud of slowly drifting black dots. It was going to be hard enough, with all these extra mouths to feed.
Needless to say, the Haldersness household was ready and waiting for them when they trudged down the last slope into the yard. He saw Eyvind and Rannwey and Rook and Scaptey, and Asburn at the back, looking anxious; no sign of Halder, which was odd.
‘And another thing.’ Boarci was at his side, almost protective, like a bodyguard. ‘I lost all my kit back there, when the house got swamped. I’m not fussed about the rest of it, but it’s a bloody shame about my axe. It was a good one, too, I’d had it for years.’
‘No problem,’ Poldarn replied, managing to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘I’ll get our smith to make you a new one. He does good work, you’ll be pleased.’
Boarci shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘But it’s a pity, all the same. Belonged
to my father, about the only nice thing he ever had.’
Oh shut up, for crying out loud. ‘I’ll get Asburn on making you a new one straight away,’ he said. ‘And anything else you want, you just say the word, all right?’
‘Like I said, I’m not bothered,’ Boarci replied dolefully. ‘I mean, when it comes right down to it, it’s only stuff, right?’
Talking of stuff: behind the reception committee he could see a great stack of barrels and boxes and bundles, along with most of the major items of furniture – tables, benches, lamp stands, his grandfather’s dining chair. There was no sign of any damage to the house, or indeed of any mud in the yard or the surrounding area, so it seemed odd that all the contents of the house should be packed up and outside.
Nobody on either side said anything until the two households were facing each other (like a mirror, Poldarn couldn’t help thinking; they were practically identical in numbers and composition). At least he’d be spared the chore of explaining what had happened, thanks to the mind-reading business. He might have to fill in a few details, but he was certain they knew the broad outlines already.
Eyvind took a step forward and cleared his throat, rather self-consciously. ‘Halder’s dead,’ he said.
Chapter Eleven
‘Oh,’ Poldarn said; and then, because that sounded crass and uncaring, he asked, ‘How did it happen?’, although he wasn’t really in any hurry to hear the answer. Mostly, he discovered, he was extremely annoyed, as if his opponent in some game had unexpectedly outwitted him with a move that was within the letter of the rules but nevertheless was still extremely bad form. Who the opponent was – Halder himself, or Destiny, the divine Polden even – he wasn’t really sure.
‘Heart,’ Eyvind replied. ‘When the rain washed the mud down into the river, we’d left some tools and stuff; he went out with some of the men to see if they could salvage anything. Seyward got stuck in the mud up to his knees and Halder was trying to pull him out when he collapsed and fell down. By the time they got him back to the house, he was dead.’
Seyward was standing in the second row, looking absurdly solemn but otherwise none the worse for wear, so obviously they’d managed to get him out at some point. If he’d been in danger, then Halder’s death was probably heroic, or at least meaningful. Otherwise it was a bloody stupid way to go, on account of some manky old tools.
Poldarn pulled himself together. As usual, he didn’t know the correct procedures, but he guessed that the first step would be offering his commiserations to the widow. He turned to Rannwey. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
But she only looked puzzled. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t even here. And who’s that next to you? I don’t know him.’
Poldarn had to think before he replied. ‘This is Boarci,’ he said. ‘He’s a friend of mine. Actually, he saved my life, twice.’
As far as he could tell from Rannwey’s face, that wasn’t enough to justify cluttering the place up with strangers. ‘He staying, or moving on?’ she asked.
Boarci started to say something, but Poldarn forestalled him. ‘He’ll be staying,’ he said. ‘With all these extra mouths to feed, one more won’t make any odds.’
Rannwey made a small sighing noise in the back of her mouth, but didn’t say anything. Poldarn hoped that that meant the subject was closed. ‘So when did he die?’ he asked.
‘The day before yesterday,’ Eyvind replied. ‘About midmorning.’
‘I see.’ He was about to ask about the funeral arrangements, but then he realised that he hadn’t the faintest idea how these people (his people) disposed of their dead. For all he knew, they buried them in hollow trees, or ate them. Well; this was Eyvind he was talking to, albeit in front of several dozen witnesses. Eyvind knew how ignorant he was. ‘You’re going to have to tell me what happens about funerals,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
Eyvind looked at him, and for a moment he was afraid he’d said something wrong, again. Then he realised that he’d used a foreign word. ‘Funeral,’ he repeated. ‘It means any ceremonies or that sort of thing, when someone dies. Also, what happens to the body. You know,’ he added, unrealistically hopeful.
Eyvind thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, and Poldarn could feel him treading carefully, ‘we put the body in the dungheap yesterday morning. Did you want to look at it – I mean, is there something you want to do?’ Poldarn didn’t need to be a mind-reader to sense the waves of embarrassment. ‘I don’t know how they do these things where you’ve been living,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, that’s fine,’ Poldarn said quickly, much to Eyvind’s evident relief. So, that was that, then; the dead went in with the vegetable peelings and the horseshit, where they could perform one last function for the community. Reasonable enough, and absolutely consistent; certainly no worse than the pile of scrap metal in the corner of Asburn’s smithy. It was all just a matter of shape-changing and memory, after all. ‘So,’ he went on, terribly brisk and businesslike, ‘what happens now?’
Eyvind grinned bleakly. ‘There’s a question,’ he said. ‘Well, for a start, you’ve got to build your house. We’ve got all the furniture and stuff packed up and out already, so the next step is felling the lumber. Really we ought to get moving on that right away, before it starts raining again; we can store all the house contents in the middle barn, but it’s going to be cramped in there, and now we’ve got to find somewhere for them to sleep—’ He nodded very slightly towards the Colscegsford people, who didn’t seem to have moved since they’d arrived. ‘Of course, with them to lend a hand we’ll be able to get the job done much quicker, which is a blessing. We’ll be a bit short on tools, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.’
Poldarn nodded, as if all this made perfect sense to him. ‘And then what?’ he said.
‘Well, after your house is built, the next job’ll be to tear down the old one. After that, once we’ve stacked the lumber—’
‘Just a moment,’ Poldarn interrupted. ‘Surely it’d make better sense for Colsceg and his people to move into the old house. I mean, it seems a bit pointless to dismantle a perfectly good house and leave them camping out in the barns or wherever until they can put it back up again. Not to mention the lack of storage space for us,’ he added quickly, hoping that this would constitute a suitably utilitarian line of argument. ‘I quite understand that it’s not the way it’s usually done, but with things the way we are, it’d probably be sensible to stay flexible, if you see what I mean.’
Eyvind looked at him with undisguised dismay in his face. ‘If that’s what you want to do,’ he said, ‘that’s up to you. After all, you’re the farmer now.’
Yes, but what the hell does that actually mean? ‘We don’t have to decide that right now,’ Poldarn said. ‘I think it’d be a good idea if we all sat down and had something to eat. It’s been a long, hard walk and I for one am absolutely famished.’
Rannwey nodded. ‘There’s fresh bread and cheese in the long barn,’ she said. ‘We baked the bread this morning for you. We’re just drawing off a couple of pins of beer, and there’s some stew warming up in the cider house.’ She sounded tired – all that extra work, as if they didn’t have enough to put up with – but that was all. For a woman who’d just lost her husband, it was simply bizarre. Even if she’d hated Halder solidly for fifty years, she ought to have been showing pleasure, or at least relief; but a normal person would’ve displayed more emotion over the demise of a favourite pair of shoes. Poldarn decided it was yet another aspect of the mind-reading thing – but that didn’t really follow, because logically the entire household should have been as distraught as the widow herself, and nobody seemed particularly upset, just a little more pompously solemn than usual. He wondered how he could ever have lived among these people. When he’d been one of them, had he been like this? Come to that, was this what he really was – incapable of basic human feelings? That didn’t seem likely, because even as he ran these specu
lations through his mind, he could feel a great wave of pain surging up inside him, like a volcano building up to an explosion, as he realised that he’d loved Halder, somehow and in a fashion he couldn’t define; that without him he was completely lost, washed ashore on an unknown island populated by incomprehensible strangers.
‘That’s just fine,’ he said, and that seemed to be the cue for the reception party to break up and get back to work, while Rannwey led the way to the long barn.
Poldarn felt ashamed as he ate, because the food tasted wonderful after two days of hungry trudging. As he stuffed bread and stewed beef into his face, he couldn’t keep his mind off the obscure conundrum that these people represented; until he thought of the crows circling over the house, and it struck him that when one of their number died, they reacted in much the same way – no grief or heartbreak, just a slight readjustment of their order and patterns of flight, a closing-up of the gap that the dead individual had filled, so that within a few moments it was as if he’d never existed. That was the strength of the crows’ organisation – it could lose a member or take back a straggler who’d been away for many years, without any noticeable disruption. Perhaps that was why killing them had been so fascinating; you could kill a hundred of them, and there’d still be just as many left, because really there was only one of them, as immortal as a god—
(And what else should a god be but undying, present everywhere that one part of Him happened to be, a single consciousness vested in the heart of a cloud of unimportant bodies? Killing crows was like trying to kill a river by drowning it. By that token, Halder wasn’t dead; because Halder was the farmer at Haldersness, and there was still a farmer here, the only difference being in the small matter of his name, Ciartan. Ciartan, Poldarn thought: that’s me. And a name is just an aid to memory, and memory washes out in fire the way dye washes out in water.)
‘I’ll say this for your outfit, the grub’s not bad.’ He hadn’t noticed that Boarci was still next to him. ‘The beer’s a bit thin, mind, but you can’t have everything in this life. Pass those boiled eggs.’
