by K. J. Parker
Boarci could swallow boiled eggs whole, provided he had enough beer to wash them down with. ‘Why do you do that?’ Poldarn asked, after he’d repeated the procedure for the fifth time.
‘Don’t like the taste,’ Boarci replied. ‘If you just gulp ’em down, you don’t have to taste ’em. I was at a place once, they used to preserve eggs in vinegar. Didn’t taste any better, but they tasted different, if you see what I mean.’
‘I expect you’ve seen a lot of interesting things on your travels,’ Poldarn said, spearing an egg before they all vanished.
‘Not really,’ Boarci replied. ‘Once you’ve seen one farm, you’ve seen ’em all. Mind you, I did go raiding one year, when I was able to get a berth on a ship. We were away three months. But all you see when you’re on that lark is a lot of open country and a few burnt-down towns. All places are pretty much the same, really.’
Or if they aren’t to start with, they are when you’re through with them. ‘You may well be right,’ Poldarn answered mildly. ‘So, you’ll be sticking around, then.’
‘Not up to me,’ Boarci replied with his mouth full. ‘I hang around till they tell me to piss off. Some places it takes longer than others, that’s all. But then, places don’t really matter much. My old dad used to say, it’s not where you are but who you are. Wouldn’t go that far myself, but I suppose he had a point.’
‘It sounds pretty convincing to me,’ Poldarn said. ‘What don’t you agree with?’
‘Ah.’ Boarci swallowed, and gulped some more beer. ‘I see it another way. I say, it’s not where you are or who you are, it’s what you are. Everything else can be fixed, so it doesn’t actually matter a toss. Like, you can take a piece of iron, like an axle or a fireback, and you can make it into any bloody thing, but you can’t turn it into brass. You get what I’m saying?’
Poldarn nodded. ‘I don’t really understand them,’ he said, ‘these people, I mean. You’d have thought it’d have meant something to them, my grandfather dying like that. But they don’t seem to care.’
Boarci laughed. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘They’ve got you now.’
‘In which case, I’m truly sorry for them. I don’t know spit about running a farm.’
‘They do,’ Boarci said. ‘And unless you’re as thick as mud, you’ll let ’em get on with it and keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you. You’ve got other things to do, remember; you’ve got a house to build, and this business with the mountain – somebody said you know all about that, from being abroad.’
Poldarn sighed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘all I know is that in the empire, mountains that blow up are called volcanoes. That’s it, really.’
Boarci shook his head. ‘Don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘Else how come you knew exactly what to do when the mud started coming down back at Colscegsford? You know a hell of a lot more about this shit than you’re letting on, but if you don’t want to share, that’s no skin off my nose.’
For some reason, Poldarn found this infuriating. ‘I said the first thing that came into my head,’ he said. ‘By some miracle, it turned out to be the right thing to do. It could just as easily have got us all killed.’
But Boarci only smiled. ‘Maybe you don’t know what you know,’ he said, picking up a bone and gnawing it messily. ‘People tell me I’m as weird as a bucketful of snails, but you’re something else, believe me. It’s like there’s two of you, and they hate each other. I’ve seen married couples like that, been together forty years and spend their lives trying to jerk each other around, but they’ve grown so close you can hardly see where one ends and the other begins. God only knows what this lot make of you. But that’s their problem, isn’t it?’
‘And mine,’ Poldarn muttered. ‘But I’m telling you the truth, I don’t know any more than you do about volcanoes—’
‘What?’
Poldarn closed his eyes. ‘Volcano. It’s the foreign word for exploding mountains.’
‘Ah, right.’ Boarci nodded. ‘Of course, back where I grew up we had a different word.’
That made Poldarn sit bolt upright. ‘You know about the bloody things?’
‘Well.’ Boarci frowned. ‘Wouldn’t say that, exactly. But my mother’s cousin – we used to stay with them a few weeks each year in summer, to help out with the threshing and stuff – she used to tell a story about how a mountain blew up back in the old country.’
‘Morevich.’
‘What?’
‘Morevich. It used to be part of the empire. Where we came from originally.’
Boarci shrugged. ‘Is that so? Never heard it called that before, it was always the old country or back home. Anyhow, who gives a stuff, it’s all ancient history anyhow. Point is, she had this story – mind, she was ninety and blind as a bat and a little bit daft in the head most of the time, and she dribbled her soup all down her front, but she loved to tell this yarn about how there was a big mountain right above the biggest city in the old country, and how one day a god came by in an old carrier’s cart and told them the world was about to end. ’Course, they didn’t believe him, because who ever heard of a real god rattling round the lanes in a dirty old cart, but the day after he’d passed through, the mountain burst open all down one side and burning shit came pouring down off it like molten metal out of a busted crucible, and the sky was so full of ash you couldn’t see three feet in front of your nose, and the whole city was covered in the burning shit and that was the end of them.’ He paused and wiped gravy out of his beard. ‘There was a whole load more stuff to it than that,’ he added. ‘It had a regular story to it, with heroes and villains, and it was all somebody’s fault for doing some bloody stupid thing, but I can’t remember all that now, I reckon she made it up out of her head to make the yarn more interesting. Anyway, in her story the blowing-up mountain was always called Polden’s Furnace, and that was the name of the god in the cart. There was some kind of woman involved in it, too – a witch or something – but you know what they’re like, storytellers, they’ll chuck in any old rubbish.’
Poldarn nodded. ‘Like you said,’ he replied. ‘Though it’s interesting, because when I was a kid, my grandfather told me this mountain used to be called Polden’s Forge.’
‘Well, there you go,’ Boarci said, yawning. ‘Practically the same thing, though you would know more about that side of things, you being a blacksmith. Though for what it’s worth, furnace sounds more like it to me, because you melt stuff down in a furnace, like with the molten rock. Don’t suppose there’s more than a grain of truth in it, because most of these old tales are just a load of bullshit.’
After they’d eaten and the tables had been put away (they had to stack them diagonally in a corner, on top of a feed bin) the rest of the household dissolved like a morning fog, leaving Poldarn and the Colscegsford people to their own devices. As far as Poldarn was concerned, this meant sleep; if he was now the master of Haldersness, soon to be Ciartanswhatever, he could give himself permission to take the rest of the day off, which he did. Rather ostentatiously, he picked out a blanket, climbed up into the loft and made himself as comfortable as a human being can be while lying on bundles of unthreshed thatching reed. Typically, however, he couldn’t get to sleep, even though he was dismally tired, so he lay on his side watching the others for a while, figuring that the sight of a parcel of these people (his people) sitting around with nothing specific to do would be enough to send anybody to sleep, overtired or not. It turned out to be a rather remarkable spectacle, because all they did was sit perfectly still, like birds roosting in a tree – conserving their energy, just as you’d expect with such perfectly efficient creatures. Most of them squatted on the floor, their hands folded in their laps, eyes open (in case of predators, presumably); one or two remained standing, by the door and the window, acting as the sentries for the rest of the flock. Nobody spoke, but Poldarn could tell they were engaged in a slow, quiet debate about something or other, anything from their future in their new environment to the proporti
on of rosemary to chives in the stew. He wondered about himself, roosting apart from the main body; was it useful to the community to have one far-flung sentry disconnected from the rest, a separate mind constituting a back-up or fail-safe (knowing about volcanoes and what to do in the event of mudslides, because unexpected natural disasters and acts of the god in the cart are predators too, in their fashion), and if so, how had they ever managed to cope before he came home? But there was Boarci, just as separate as he was though in a less acceptable way. He was sitting astride a post vice-bolted to a beam set into the wall, and he was whittling something out of a bit of bone he’d saved from his dinner – something for himself, a purely selfish concern, contributing nothing to the wellbeing of the community. Confounded parasite, no wonder he’s not welcome anywhere . . .
Poldarn drifted into sleep without realising, and had a dream in which he held a slow, quiet debate of his own with someone he couldn’t usually see. Whether or not anything useful was achieved he couldn’t remember when he woke up, which defeated the object of the exercise; it was pitch dark, the door being bolted and the windows shuttered, and he could hear the busy sound of the two households breathing in their sleep. It was annoying to be awake and suddenly restless, out of time and step with everyone else. Even if there was anything for him to do he couldn’t have done it: the floor was completely covered with sleepers so he couldn’t have got to the door without treading on a dozen people; so he sat up and tried hard not to fidget, searching for something to occupy his mind. But the only thoughts he could come up with were uncomfortable ones, mostly to do with how different he was – asleep when they were awake, awake when they were asleep, perched up above them in the reed like a god or a nocturnal carrion-feeder. He couldn’t make out faces or identities in the general sprawl of sleepers, but he reckoned that the raw, vibrant snore coming from the far left corner could only be coming from Boarci (like a cross-cut saw ripping into green timber, with just a suggestion of an axe being sharpened on a clogged grindstone). He closed his eyes and tried to isolate different breathers – the head of a household should be able to identify his people even in the dark – but it was like trying to pick out the sound of one specific wave breaking on a beach. He wondered; are they all dreaming the same dream, are they all at the same point in the same dream, do they dream at all or are they still in session, gradually debating their way down a long, comprehensive agenda, like monks in chapter? He thought of how horses and hawks slept with their eyes open, and wondered whether these people (his people, now more than ever) actually slept at all, or whether when their eyes were closed their one shared mind was still awake, slowly chewing and digesting facts into policies.
As Poldarn was turning this proposition over in his mind, he realised that someone was standing over him. That was strange – he hadn’t heard anyone moving about and there was no other way up into the loft except by the ladder. Old instincts made his right hand twitch, but he made himself turn round slowly.
‘You should be asleep,’ Halder said. ‘You’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’
You’re dead, he thought. But not as dead as all that, apparently. ‘I know,’ he replied, though he couldn’t hear himself speak. ‘But you know how it is. I’m wide awake now.’
Halder nodded. ‘I used to get that,’ he said. ‘Then I’d get to fidgetting, and that’d wake Rannwey up – she hated being woken up in the middle of the night. So we’d both be lying there, wide awake, sulking at each other, till it was morning and we could get up.’ He sighed. ‘I think it’s something to do with the job,’ he went on, ‘being awake while the rest of ’em are asleep. Truth is, and don’t ask me to explain it because I never was one of your deep thinkers, but there’s times when you’ve got to be awake or else they wouldn’t be able to sleep. Only when that happens, it’s because there’s something important on; and in your case, I don’t see how it could apply, since you can’t hear them.’
‘I know,’ Poldarn replied. ‘I hate that.’
Halder nodded. ‘It’s going to be a real problem,’ he said unhappily. ‘Its a bloody shame you haven’t been able to get it sorted out yet. Sooner or later you’re going to have to, or else this place is going to grind to a halt. It’d be like when someone has a stroke, the body and the brain can’t talk to each other. Can’t have that, especially now, with the mountain – what was that word of yours again?’
‘Volcano.’
‘That’s right,’ Halder said. ‘Fact is, I’m starting to forget things. You’d know all about that, of course. I can see now, it can’t be easy for you.’
Poldarn frowned. ‘What sort of things can’t you remember?’
Halder laughed. ‘I’ve forgotten. Which is a bugger, because it’s like they never existed, and there’s a lot of stuff I should’ve told you, but I could never make you hear. Won’t be long now before it’s all gone, and you’ll really be on your own – no disrespect to your grandmother, she’s a wonderful woman, salt of the earth, but it was never her business to know that sort of thing, so she’ll be no help to you at all.’
‘I see,’ Poldarn said. ‘How long do you think it’ll be before you’ve forgotten it all?’
‘Depends,’ Halder replied. ‘If the ground’s wet, obviously much sooner than if it’s dry. I’d give it a couple of months, this time of year, and then there’ll be nothing left but a few bones, and they won’t be much use to you, I’m afraid.’ He shook his head. ‘Everything loses its memory sooner or later, even if you don’t melt it or bash it with a hammer it’ll rust or rot or just fall apart and turn into dust; and then it’s off and away, you’ll never get it back again.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Sometimes it’s just as well, other times it’s a waste, but there’s no getting away from it. You can’t put anything back together again, all you can do is make something completely new using the bits of the old one. In your case, that’s as close to hope as you’re likely to get, though I have a feeling that you’re like a really clever craftsman, you can make the same thing identical, over and over again. Which reminds me, you really have got to stick to the blacksmithing now that you’re the head man around here. Asburn—’ He made a vague gesture. ‘He’s a bloody good smith, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not his place, it’s yours. You’ll see exactly what I mean by that, sooner than you think, and then you’ll understand why I’ve been banging on about it all this time. I wish I could have explained, but you couldn’t hear me. You’ll just have to take my word for it.’
Poldarn pulled a face. ‘Yes, all right,’ he said, ‘I’ll try and fit it in, when I’m not building houses or dodging mudslides. Was there something important, or did you come back from the dead just to nag me about my homework?’
‘You shouldn’t talk to me like that, it’s not respectful. And yes, there was something. There’s a whole lot of stuff, and if you’ll just shut up for a moment I can tell you—’
Poldarn opened his eyes. He’d fallen asleep after all (and he’d done it in such a way as to crick his neck and his back and put his right arm to sleep; hardly a good start to a busy day) and now daylight was seeping through the bald patches in the thatch, thinning and curdling the darkness. What’s the betting I’m the last to wake up, as usual? But not this time: down below in the main body of the barn, the household was just beginning to stir, all at the same time. It was an extraordinary sight, to see so many people waking up at precisely the same moment. Well, I was right about that, he told himself, though that doesn’t make it any the less weird. I really don’t want to know why they do that.
He stood up, and his legs were stiff and cramped; he had to steady himself, or he’d have fallen out of the loft and broken his neck. He closed his eyes to get rid of a brief moment of dizziness; and when he opened them again, he realised that he knew what he had to do today. All of it, the whole thing, as if he’d known it all along and only just remembered it (but he hadn’t, he was sure of that; if this was a memory, it wasn’t one of his).
Just as well, really, he said to himse
lf, otherwise it’d have been really embarrassing. His legs felt much better now, and he scrambled down the ladder like a twelve-year-old. For the first time in a long while, he actually felt cheerful and confident about the day ahead, because he knew what he was supposed to be doing and knew how to do it. Of course, he reflected, this is what it’s like for them every bloody day of their lives, no wonder they’re always so damned smug. Feeling like this, there’s absolutely nothing you couldn’t do, it’d be like you’re omnipotent. This is what it must be like if you’re a god.
He knew who to look for first; Autcel, one of the Colscegsford men, and Horn, the Haldersness cooper and wheelwright, were the best tool-grinders in the two households, and he needed them to put an edge on the axes, hooks and adzes they’d be using today. He ran his gaze round the barn and saw them, yawning and stretching on their way to the door, which someone else had already unbolted and opened. They would go and start up the big treadle grindstone in the middle house, and by the time they’d finished, the rest of them would be kitted up and ready to make a start. What else would they need? Shovels and picks, which Raffen and Carey would fetch from the trap-house, and baskets – Rannwey and Jelda would see to them – and a line and a basin of water, of course, he’d get them himself, he knew where they were kept. For a moment, he fancied that he could see the whole job, every detail of it from beginning to end, all at the same time (like an illuminated manuscript chained to the desk in a sword-monks’ monastery, where scenes from the beginning and the middle and the end are all played out in the same picture against the same background, with three identical heroes – one of them hearing the call of religion, one of them killing the dragon, one of them suffering martyrdom thirty years later in a different city five hundred miles away).
Easy, Poldarn said to himself, piece of cake, slice of duff, child’s play. I could do this standing on my head. I can remember it like it was yesterday, from the last time—
