by K. J. Parker
That didn't really help matters; so they agreed to forget about the search and headed for home. They were a long way out by that point, and the sun was starting to set by the time they reached the house. Outside, tied to the rail of the smashed-up pen, they saw four horses.
'Of course they could be ours,' Raffen muttered, 'and whoever found them could have saddled them up and ridden them back here. But I doubt it.'
Inside they found four men, sitting round the table looking bored. They didn't recognise them, but they had a fair idea who they were.
'Where the hell have you been?' one of the strangers asked.
Poldarn walked up the hall toward them. 'You're Eyvind's people,' he said.
'That's right,' another one of them replied. 'We've come to pick up those horses that were left here, but we can't find them, and there was nobody about. What's going on here?'
Poldarn took a deep breath. 'Your horses aren't here,' he said. 'When you were looking round, you may have noticed the pen out front. We had the horses in there but they broke through the rails and got out. We've just spent the last two days searching for them.'
The strangers looked at each other. 'Like hell,' one of them said. 'You don't really expect us to believe that, do you?'
'Maybe not,' Poldarn said, 'but you don't have to. You can do that mind-reading trick, can't you?'
'Not on you,' said another of the strangers. 'You're all barricaded up. Eyvind told us you're a freak.'
'Not on me,' Poldarn said patiently. 'One of the others. Look inside their heads, you'll see I'm telling the truth.'
But the stranger who'd spoken first shook his head. 'We don't trust you,' he said. 'There could be all sorts of reasons. Maybe it's just you who hid the horses, and you've had these people out looking for them, believing they're lost. Or maybe you can do things to their minds-there's no knowing what sort of tricks you're capable of. Aren't you the one who knew the mountain was going to blow up before it even happened?'
Poldarn sighed. 'The horses got out,' he said. 'We went looking for them, but we can't find any trace of them. That's all there is to it.'
'That's not very likely,' one of the strangers said. 'There'd be some tracks, no matter what. Ten horses don't just vanish. Not unless they get a lot of help.'
'Listen.' Poldarn sat down on the bench, gently pushing a stranger aside and making him move down. 'We're tired and hungry, we've just wasted two days chasing after horses that don't even belong to us, which you left here without even asking permission. You can believe us or not, that's up to you, but in any event, go away. We aren't in the mood.'
'It's dark,' one of them said. 'We can't go back round the mountain in the dark, it'd be asking for trouble.'
'Fine, then you can stay here. Just shut up and let us go to bed.'
The stranger who'd spoken first stood up. 'He's lying,' he said. 'Otherwise he wouldn't shut off his mind like that, obviously he's got something to hide. He knows perfectly well where the horses are.'
'Sit down, for God's sake,' Poldarn said. 'You're getting on my nerves.'
The stranger hesitated for a moment, then sat down. 'Look,' he said, 'we haven't got any quarrel with you, but if we go back without those bloody horses, Eyvind'll skin us alive. You don't want him for an enemy. Trust me, I've known him a long time.'
'Funny,' Boarci said to nobody in particular, 'I wouldn't have called throwing us out of our own house all that friendly. Still, you folks in these parts have some pretty strange ways.'
'Boarci, shut up,' Poldarn said. 'Listen to me,' he went on, looking the stranger in the eye. 'If I knew where the horses are, I'd tell you. I don't want to pick a fight with Eyvind or anybody else. If you think we've got them hidden somewhere, please go ahead and look. Take all the time you need, make a really thorough search. Tell me what you want us to do to prove to you that we haven't got them, and we'll do it. Now, is that fair, or what?'
The stranger pulled a tragic face. 'I can't go back and tell him that,' he said. 'The bloody things have got to be somewhere. For God's sake, quit fooling around. This sort of thing just doesn't happen here.'
'I know why we couldn't find them,' put in one of the other strangers. 'It's damned obvious, when you think about it. Like, when we left them here they didn't have any food. They've killed them and eaten them, for sure.'
Poldarn would have laughed out loud, except that he remembered what Boarci had said on the first evening. 'Don't be ridiculous,' he said. 'We wouldn't do that.'
'Oh really?' The stranger leant forward across the table. 'So what have you been eating, then? Tell me that.'
'Roast venison, mostly,' Boarci said with a yawn. 'Also goose, duck, pheasant, stuff like that. Better than what you've been eating, I'll bet. What's for dinner at Haldersness these days, boys? Porridge and onions?'
The expression on the strangers' faces suggested that Boarci was probably right. 'Bullshit,' one of them said. 'There's no game in this valley; I lived here all my life, never seen a deer closer than a mile away.'
Boarci grinned. 'That I can believe,' he said. 'You're too fat and dumb to get closer than a mile to any deer, unless it's dead already.'
Poldarn scowled at him, then said, 'It's since the mountain blew up, it's driven the deer down from the high ground. There's quite a lot of them about, thank God. Otherwise yes, we'd have had a hard time of it. If you like, I'll take you out back and you can see the bones in the midden.'
'Sure,' the stranger muttered. 'Horse bones. Maybe we can take a few back to Eyvind. He'd be interested in seeing them, I'll bet.'
'If he's so dumb he can't tell horse bones from deer bones-' Boarci started to say, but Poldarn interrupted him with a furious glare. 'Once and for all,' he said, 'we haven't eaten your goddamned horses. We haven't hidden them away, we don't know where they are, otherwise we'd give them to you and get you out of our lives. That's the truth, and you can tell Eyvind what the hell you like.' He stood up, and the rest of his household stood up with him. 'Now,' he went on, 'you're welcome to stay the night here, in the barn, or you can be on your way tonight, whichever you like. Meanwhile, we're very tired and we want to have our dinner and go to bed.'
The strangers looked at each other. 'You're making a big mistake,' one of them said.
'Maybe,' Poldarn replied. 'Don't suppose it'd be the first time, or the last. But my offer still stands: you tell us what we've got to do to convince you and we'll do it. But if you aren't going to take me up on it, you can go to the barn, or you can set off home. Is that clear?'
After a long pause the strangers stood up, all but one of them. He folded his arms across his chest and said, 'I'm not budging from here till you tell us what you've done with the horses.'
His companions shifted uneasily, and one of them gestured to him to get up. He ignored the signals and pulled a face that was presumably intended to express irresistible resolve, though Poldarn reckoned it just looked silly.
'Come on, Terfin,' one of the other strangers said. 'Let Eyvind deal with these clowns-it's not worth it.'
'Screw you,' Terfin said angrily.
Poldarn was trying not to laugh; but suddenly Boarci darted forwards, grabbed Terfin's arm, twisted it savagely behind his back until he screamed, and hauled him to his feet. 'Ciartan told you to leave,' he said quietly. 'Are you deaf as well as stupid?'
'Boarci, let him go, for God's sake,' Poldarn shouted; but Boarci was grinning. 'It's all right,' he said, 'he's just leaving, him and his pals. And if I ever see them round here again, they'll be going home on their backs. You got that?' One of the other strangers started to move, but Boarci twisted Terfin's arm a little further, making him howl like a cat.
Poldarn closed his eyes. 'Boarci,' he said, 'you let that man go or you'll need somewhere else to live. Whatever it is you think you're doing, it isn't helping.'
Boarci laughed, and pushed Terfin across the room. He hit the wall and fell down. 'I'm not afraid of any little turd like that,' he said.
'No,' Poldarn said,
'but I am, and I don't give a shit who knows it. You,' he said to the strangers, 'get out now, before this gets any worse. And you,' he went on, turning to Boarci, 'I'll forgive you this once, because of how you saved me from the bear. But if you ever do anything like that again, I'll throw you out of here so fast your head'll spin.'
Boarci grinned; the strangers left without a word, and a moment or so later Poldarn could hear them mounting up in the yard. He sighed, and rested his head on his elbows. Nobody spoke for a long time.
'Well,' Elja said, 'that could have gone better.'
'You think so?' Boarci yawned. 'I'd say we handled it pretty well, considering.'
For a moment Poldarn wanted to hit him, but he was too tired. 'I meant what I said,' he told him. 'One more stunt like that and you're out. Do you understand me?' But Boarci only grinned, and asked what was for dinner.
'Well, there's the pheasant,' Elja said, 'and those revolting looking fungus things. Or there's the last pickings off that hare from the day before yesterday. Or I suppose I could fix up some soup.'
Raffen looked up. 'What kind of soup?' he said.
'No particular kind,' Elja replied. 'Just soup.'
'In that case,' Raffen replied, 'I suggest you make it the pheasant. What're you groaning at?' he added, as Asburn let out a long sigh. 'Got the guts-ache or something?'
Asburn shook his head. 'Nothing,' he replied. 'I was just thinking of all that salt beef we got off that up-country type. What I wouldn't give for a plate of that right now'
Boarci made a show of being offended. 'What, better than fresh roast venison?' he growled. 'Some people are just plain ignorant.'
'I like salt beef,' Asburn replied plaintively. 'All this wildlife stuff's all very well, I guess, but it's not what you'd call proper food. Salt beef, some good strong cheese and a big fat chunk of new bread; now that's what I call food.'
Boarci shook his head sadly. 'You'll just have to dream,' he said. 'Now,' he went on, 'I know where I can get you a nice neck fillet of horse-'
'That's very funny, Boarci,' Poldarn said. 'You could die laughing at a joke like that. All right,' he went on, 'let's have the pheasant and the poison mushrooms, and then for God's sake let's go to bed and get some sleep.'
Later, when they were lying alone together in the dark, Elja asked him: 'What do you suppose Eyvind'll do now?'
Poldarn stared up at the roof. 'I don't know,' he replied. 'From what I know of him, he'd be prepared to leave the business with the horses. Whether he believes us or not, he's got more sense than to pick a fight over something trivial. And he's got all my horses, those and his own are more than he needs. It's not in his nature to quarrel with his own kind, even with a freak like me.'
'Ah,' Elja said drowsily. 'So that's all right, then.'
But Poldarn shook his head. 'It's not the horses I'm worried about,' he said. 'It's Boarci starting a fight with that man. You can be sure they'll tell Eyvind all about that; they'll want to make a big deal about it so he won't think too much about them coming home empty-handed. If they make it sound like we slung them out, Eyvind won't take that well, it'll offend his sense of what's right. It's us freaks beating up on regular folks, it'll get him worried and angry. The point is, he's afraid of me. He thinks I made the mountain blow up.'
'He's an idiot,' Elja mumbled.
'Maybe.' Poldarn sighed. 'But he feels responsible, because he brought me here, and ever since then, nothing's been the way it ought to be. First the mountain blew up, then I was telling people what to do, and now I'm stealing horses and beating up his men when he asks for them back. If I was going out of my way to make him afraid of me, I couldn't have done a better job.'
'Then it's your own silly fault,' Elja said. 'Next time, think carefully before you go setting off any volcanoes.'
Poldarn shifted, but he couldn't get comfortable. The blanket felt hot and heavy. 'I wish I understood him better,' he said. 'It's like I can see one half of him but not the other. This is all going wrong, just when I thought I was making some sense of it.'
Elja yawned, and pulled the blanket over to her side of the bed. 'Shut up and go to sleep,' she said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A week went by, and every day Poldarn did his arithmetic-a day and a half for them to get back to Ciartanstead, two at the most; a day for Eyvind to get his people organised; a day and a half to ride over here, two at the most-and every morning he adjusted the variables like a good actuary, allowing half a day here for a house meeting, a day there for making weapons or other such preparations, a day lost because of a stream in spate or a blocked ford. By the end of the week he was convinced that Eyvind was either coming with a fully equipped army, or he wasn't coming at all.
Eight days, and no sign of him. Nine days, and Poldarn allowed himself to tip the balance ever so slightly in favour of the second hypothesis. Ten days, and he found that he needed to exercise considerable ingenuity to stay worried. A fortnight, and he'd have been able to dismiss the whole incident from his mind-if Boarci hadn't gone missing.
He'd set off one morning, early, before anybody else had been awake, and they'd assumed that he was out killing things, as usual. At dinner time, Raffen said that Boarci had probably decided to sleep out on a trail so as to catch a particularly large and juicy buck on its way to its morning feed. At noon the next day, Asburn wondered if Boarci had fallen down somewhere on the mountain and damaged his leg. That night, nobody mentioned him at all, and conversation was generally subdued.
'It's just the sort of solution Eyvind would go for,' Poldarn told Elja, as they got ready for bed. 'Rather than pick a quarrel with all of us because of what Boarci did to that man, he's decided to make it a personal thing, himself and Boarci. It's quite clever thinking, actually, because after all, Boarci's the outsider, we wouldn't be under any real obligation to take the matter further. Eyvind knows he's got to do something, but he's giving us a way out of having to hit back.'
Elja nodded. 'Or maybe Boarci's slipped on loose shale and twisted his ankle,' she said. 'Or he's got bored with being in the one place for so long and gone off somewhere else. He's a drifter, it's what they do.'
'He wouldn't just go, without saying a word.'
'You reckon?' Elja shook her head. 'I think it's exactly what he'd do. And even if I'm wrong, there's another way of looking at it. Suppose he got to worrying about what he'd started, and he figured that the best thing he could do is clear out. That way, Eyvind can't touch him, because he can't find him; and Eyvind won't bother us, because we can say it was all Boarci's fault, nothing to do with us. Solves the problem neatly, don't you think?'
Poldarn hadn't thought of that. 'That's not like him at all,' he said. 'His idea of sorting out the mess would be going over there and planting an axe between Eyvind's eyebrows.' He paused. 'God,' he said, 'let's just pray he hasn't, or we really are in trouble.'
He slept badly that night, and was woken up out of a mystifying dream by the sound of horses in the yard outside. He jumped up and groped in the dark for the axe he'd put beside the bed the previous evening. Instead, he caught hold of Elja's toe, and got sworn at.
'Shut up,' he hissed, 'they're here. Horses, in the yard. Can't you hear?'
That woke her up. 'Maybe it's the missing horses,' she whispered. 'Maybe they found their own way home.'
Poldarn didn't answer. He felt his way along the wall with his hands, looking for the door. It took him far too long to find it; by then, the rest of the household was awake. He could hear someone unbolting the door, calling out, 'Who's there?' Not a sound tactical move, he thought.
'It's all right,' replied a familiar voice. 'It's only me.'
'Bloody hell,' Poldarn whispered under his breath. Then he found the door and pushed through it.
'Boarci,' he shouted, 'for crying out loud. Where have you been?'
Someone had managed to get a lamp lit. It was only a little one, squidged out of stream-bed clay and fitted with a rush wick, but it gave just enough light to show Bo
arci's face, grinning. 'Ciartanstead,' he said. 'And I've brought you all a present. Anybody going to help me get it in from the cart, or have I got to do every damn thing myself?'
'What cart?' Poldarn asked, but nobody was listening to him. A moment or so later, they were all helping him to haul a big, fat, strangely familiar barrel in through the doorway.
'Is that…?' Asburn said, in a voice quiet with wonder.
'Yes,' Boarci replied. 'And don't say I never do anything for you.'
It was one of Hart's salt-beef barrels. There was a rope tied round the top and another round the base. It hadn't been opened, though one of the staves was cracked, and the pickle was seeping through.
'Well, don't all thank me at once,' Boarci said.
Poldarn found that extreme anger made him talk softly. 'Where did you get that from?' he asked.
'From Ciartanstead,' Boarci replied. 'Where else?'
'I see.' Poldarn nodded. 'I thought for a moment you might have run into Hart and traded it for something. So you went over there and stole it.'
Raffen laughed. 'Wasn't stealing,' he said. 'It's our salt beef.' Then he caught Poldarn's eye and shut up rapidly.
'Yes,' Boarci said. 'After they had the nerve to come over here, saying we were telling lies about their fucking horses. Also, Asburn said he fancied some salt beef.'
'Fine,' Poldarn said. 'Now, what's this about a cart? Where did it come from?'
'Same place,' Boarci said. 'Actually, it's not a cart, just the old trap.'
'So as well as stealing the beef,' Poldarn purred, 'you stole the trap and the horses.'
Boarci grinned. 'I found the trap out on the mountain road,' he said. 'Wheel'd come off, they'd ditched it. In open ground. I call that salvage, not stealing.'
'Actually, he's right,' Rook put in; then he shut up, as well.
