by K. J. Parker
You three-God almighty, why's it always you three? All right, let's see what you've got. Oh, bloody hell, didn't you hear what he said about no prisoners?
He could see the short man, the one who'd been shouting, but the others-he was one of them-had their backs to him, he couldn't see their faces. Two of them, the other two, were dragging a woman along with them. They'd got hold of her by the wrists, her arms stretched wide like guy-ropes, and as they hauled they lifted her off the ground so that her trailing feet left a line in the wet grass.
She isn't a prisoner, Scaptey, she's spoils of war. Perfectly legitimate. You heard the foreigner, he expressly said plunder's allowed.
The short man was giving them all a don't-try-my-patience look, as if they were children explaining why they should be allowed to keep a stray dog that had followed them home from the market. An interesting face, that man had, and clearly legible. His eyes said that he was too tired to be angry and almost too tired to care, but they couldn't keep the woman. He wished he could see their faces too. Apart from the one who was him, though, he hadn't a clue who they were.
He decided to move closer, leaving the problem behind, like a horse tethered to a rail. At least there were people he knew in the dream.
Oh, the hell with it-'Oh, the hell with it,' Scaptey, the short man, said. 'Do what you like, so long as you're done and ready to go by the time the rest of them get back. And make sure this place gets torched, right? The boss is in a bad enough mood as it is, and it'll be me that gets a boot up the arse if there's anything still standing.'
(Of course, he realised, I'm Scaptey. Not the man he was yelling at. I just didn't recognise myself, that's all. He looked again.)
'Wearily, Scaptey trudged across the courtyard and sat down on a barrel. For the last two hours he'd had to think of everything-their position, the enemy's position, possible traps and ambushes, the scary moment when it looked like they'd break through the far left of the line, the danger of pursuing too far and breaking order, the weather, the time of day-there'd be no point winning the battle if they took too long about it and missed their pickup, that'd be worse than losing… Then, when the enemy broke and ran and a man might be justified in thinking he'd done enough for one day, even more to think about and bear in mind: a village to plunder and burn, survivors to root out and deal with, followed by the aggravation of rounding up the rest of the party (just when they were starting to enjoy themselves), getting the plunder loaded on to the carts, sweeping up the stragglers, men who were too drunk or exhausted to move (and it didn't help having the boss's only son along for the ride; he couldn't very well bawl him out along with the rest of the bunch, but he couldn't let him run wild either, in case he got himself hurt or lost). Then he'd have just enough time to make a final check, every last damn thing, to make sure it'd all been done properly, before moving out and facing that long, gruelling march through the hills at double pace to get to the beach in time for the pick-up. All that to come… Right now he was still feeling groggy and sick after being bashed over the head with a big axe during the actual fighting. That reminded him. He unbuckled his helmet and examined it. Sure enough, there was a dent in the bowl just above the right temple, big enough to hide a walnut in. Some hit that'd been. If the fool had known to aim with the horn of the axe instead of the forte of the blade (like he was always telling his lads to do) he'd be dead now, or lying in the wet grass waiting to drown in air. As it was, he'd have to put up with this badly dented helmet until he could get it to an armourer and have the pit raised out, which could be days or even weeks. Needless to say, the inside of the dent was just nicely placed to press against the nerve and give him those splitting headaches that lasted all day…
Bastard locals, he thought; no bounty for killing the likes of them, and if they kill you, you're dead. Oh yes, plunder-but what could they possibly have here that was worth stealing? It was exactly the sort of junk people filled their houses with at home, the sort of thing you'd probably give to the tinker just to free up the space. Getting your head bashed in over somebody's grandmother's copper saucepan and a few clothes pegs; it was never worth it, even to prove a point.
And it was still raining; what joy. The collar of his cloak was completely sodden, trickling water down his back and chest to places he couldn't reach without stripping off all his armour. There wasn't really much point in getting under cover now, he was soaked through already, but it occurred to him that in one of the houses there might just be something to eat or drink, and he hadn't had time to do either for at least a day. It'd only take a moment or so; nobody would miss him for that long, and he was, after all, the conquering hero What's the plan?
(He knew that voice, from somewhere. Couldn't quite place it right now, didn't care. Didn't want to go back where that voice was coming from. He decided to pretend he hadn't heard.)
– And he was back again, in the village; he recognised it immediately (its name was on the tip of his tongue) but now it was much later, and the place was much brighter, since the vague, dirty sunlight strained through too many clouds had been replaced by keen orange firelight from dozens of burning houses. So this is who I am, he thought, as he watched himself, the tired and stressed-out short man, watching his people loading heavy-looking barrels and jars on to a cranky-looking farm cart.
'Load of junk,' one of the men was muttering. 'Back home they'd pay you to take it on.'
Perfectly true, Scaptey thought. 'You,' he snapped, 'do your work and keep your face shut. I've had just about enough of you for one day. Next man who talks gets to walk home, understood?'
They were good lads really, of course, or at least no worse than several others, and it was probably just bad luck and coincidence that his boys got all the shitty jobs… like this one, and the one before, and the one before that. As he was thinking, he was counting heads (an instinctive thing, something he did automatically every five minutes or so; probably mothers of large families do the same) and suddenly he realised he was three short. A scowl crossed his face. No prizes for guessing which three.
(Out of the corner of his mind's eye, he saw a crow pitching in a tall, thin tree. In its beak, improbably enough, was a gold ring. That was wrong; it's jackdaws who thieve useless shiny objects, crows have more sense. He thought about it for a while but it didn't make sense, so he went back to being Scaptey.)
He nudged the tall man, Raffen, in the back. 'Keep your eye on them till I get back,' he said. 'We're on a schedule, remember?' Then he walked fast-didn't his legs ever ache, but no time to bother with that now-towards the barn where he'd seen them last.
'I thought I told you-' he shouted into the darkness; then the light caught up with him, and he saw the three men he'd been looking for. One of them was lying face down in a tangled mess of old, dusty straw, and the other two were on their knees beside him.
'Fuck it,' he said, 'now what?' They didn't reply, but he didn't need them to. He'd seen enough dead bodies, after all.
'She killed him,' the bald one said (The bald one. Damn it, I know his name, I just can't quite…)
'Who? Oh, you mean your playmate you found earlier?'
'She had a knife,' the other one said, not looking up at him. 'She waited till afterwards, then she stuck him and ran. Must've had it hidden somewhere, God only knows where.'
He didn't say, I told you so. Well, it was done; nothing he could do except find out who'd died, clear up as best he could. He knelt down and turned the body over.
It had to be Tursten, of course; it had to be the boss's only son, on his first ever trip away from home. Look after him, Scap, the boss had told him, make sure he doesn't come to any harm, I know I can trust you. All through the battle he'd been so careful-one eye on his opponent's sword arm, the other on young master Tursten-and now he'd turned his back for five minutes and somehow, with incredible ingenuity, the young bastard had managed to find a way to get himself killed. Fantastic, Scaptey thought gloomily.
The bald man shook his head. 'She was too blood
y quick,' he replied. 'I was putting my boots on, he was taking a leak. He-' He looked down at the dead man, then quickly away. 'It was his turn, you see; we take it in turns to kill the prisoners, well, it's a bloody rotten job, it's only fair. So he was meant to be doing that, while we-'
'She got away,' Scaptey said. 'Bugger.' He sighed, just a trifle melodramatically. It was, of course, the General Order Number One: a clean sweep every time, get them all or don't bother coming back. But in practice, in reality, it wouldn't be the first time. There were always a few accidents, like this, or some soft-hearted fool who wasn't up to killing a woman or a kid. Nobody had to know; where was the harm? 'All right,' he said, 'I'll deal with you two later, you can rely on that. Meanwhile, this didn't happen. She never existed. He died when a beam fell on his head, but we'll say he died fighting, for morale, same as usual. Now put a torch to this lot and go and do some work for a change. And don't think you've got away with anything, because you haven't.'
They looked up at him now; a dumb sort of pleading look, because they didn't want to leave their friend. He had no patience with that-once they're dead they're dead; reorganise priorities, be concerned only with the living. 'Get out of here or you'll feel my boot up your arse,' he said. 'I'll clean up here.'
They left, because they had no choice in the matter. He watched them out, then went outside and pulled a bundle of thatch out of the low eaves, walked across to the next building and lit it. The barn caught fire easily enough; it drank the fire like a thirsty man just waking up from a bad dream, and he didn't have to wait long before the roof caved in, throwing a huge cloud of gorgeous orange sparks into the sky, to light his dead comrade's way to heaven. So that's all right, he thought. A beam's bound to have fallen on him in all that lot, so I'll be telling the truth. He looked back once more-too soft by half, always was-then made for the carts as quickly as he could.
(Strange, he thought, watching Scaptey walk away. Earlier I could've sworn I was the dead man, the one who just got killed by the woman. Must, must try and remember all this when I wake up-)
What's the plan?
(Damn it. Her again.)
'I said, 'Copis repeated, 'what's the plan? Do we just breeze in like we owned the place (which of course we do, since you're a god and I'm your prophet), or do we sneak in and try and find out if they're likely to want to lynch you first?'
Poldarn (he liked the name; it suited him) stretched his cramped legs and yawned. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I think I may have dozed off for a moment there.'
'Oh, for crying out loud.' She glared at him, but since he didn't immediately freeze and turn to stone she went on, 'If you ask me, we should just go in and see what happens. These are extremely superstitious people, rubes. They probably won't even dare look at your face, for fear of being struck dumb or something.'
It had taken them five days to reach the nearest village-five days on the same straight, unchanging, incredibly boring road, with precious little to eat; it occurred to him that Copis might be letting the prospect of actually doing something, followed by a good meal, blind her to the potential dangers. 'I'm not so sure,' he said. 'So far, you excepted, everybody I've met since I can remember has wanted to kill me. Maybe we should play this by ear.'
She shook her head. 'You're letting a few unfortunate experiences cloud your judgement,' she said. 'Besides, if they catch us skulking around spying on them, we'll never be able to make them believe we're the second coming. Gods don't sneak around the place to see if it's safe, they march straight in and take what they want. I've explained this to you before, but I guess you weren't listening.'
The village lay below them, a mile away down a gentle slope that formed one side of a wide, shallow valley. All they could see was the pattern of the fields, without walls or hedges, and a few paler specks in the distance, the thatched roofs of buildings. The air was chilly and slightly damp-low cloud, probably-and there was a strong smell of rain. From this distance, of course, it was impossible to distinguish anything as small as a living creature.
'If our luck's anything to go by,' Poldarn grumbled, 'when we get there we'll find they're all dead.'
'Don't joke about it,' Copis replied. 'If they're all dead, so are we, unless they've left something we can eat. Look, we can stay up here arguing all day, or we can do as I say. Your choice.'
'I hate choices,' Poldarn said. 'All right, you know best. I wish we'd had a chance for a quick wash before we did this, though. I don't think gods are supposed to smell quite as strongly as we do.'
'Like I told you, they're rubes. They won't notice.'
There speaks a born city-dweller, he thought. Still, it was clear she'd made up her mind, and besides, he couldn't very well spend the rest of his life in the wilderness for fear of meeting an enemy. That'd be like dying of thirst because you didn't trust the water.
The differences between the village and the town they'd been to earlier were quite obvious. The village had only one street, if you could dignify the ribbon of mud between the doorsteps with the name, and the houses (small weather-boarded square boxes under greying thatch, all old-no signs that anybody had built a new house here in the last hundred years) were strung out along it in a straight line, like specks of dust on a worm. That presented a problem-no town square, no obvious place to stop and set up the stall. 'Keep your eyes peeled for a smithy,' Copis said. 'Chances are that's what passes for a public building.' There wasn't one, however, or at least nothing that looked like one from the outside; likewise no mill, chapel or common granary. There was, however, a tower ('That's not a tower,' Poldarn whispered. 'Towers go up. That goes sideways.'
'It's a short tower. Rubes, remember?')
– A square, squat windowless building two story's high, with one massive door and a flat, crenellated roof, right at the far end of the village. It was considerably bigger than any other building in the place, and the walls were made of stone.
'Four dormitories built round a courtyard,' Copis explained, keeping her voice down so as not to be heard by the small crowd of old men, women and children that had been following them all the way down the street, warily keeping their distance, like crows. 'Quite common in places that got torched a hundred years or so ago and then rebuilt. When the enemy show up they drive the stock into the middle and snuggle down till the bad people have gone away. Probably built over a grain-pit. Good idea so long as there's only a few of the enemy; otherwise it's just making their job easier.'
The door was open wide enough to drive the cart through into the courtyard without stopping. The interior was a bare, square cattle pen with a churned mud floor ('Been used recently,' Copis observed. 'Which suggests they've had trouble here lately') and a few post-and-rail fences to divide the space up into compartments-one pen for the cows, another for the goats, another for the pigs, and so on; no problem telling which pen had been which, just look at the floor, or sniff. Copis drove the cart into the goat pen, which was the biggest, jumped down and tied up to a rail. She didn't say anything or look at the crowd, who carried on staring at them both in silence.
So far, all according to plan. Nothing could be done until the kids had run out to the fields and called the men back, during which time, Copis had stressed in her briefing, it was vital that he sit absolutely still up on the box, avoiding all eye contact and not making a sound. He'd thought that would probably be pretty difficult to pull off when she'd first told him about it; in the event, it was the next thing to impossible. Though the old men and women all kept as still as gateposts, some of the children were waving or making faces; he could see them out of the corner of his eye, though he was careful to keep staring at the line between the top of the roof and the sky. Timing, of course, was everything; the critical moment had to come as near as possible to noon. The god outfit was excruciatingly heavy and uncomfortable and he wished that he'd had an opportunity to get used to wearing it on the way here, but it had been raining on and off all the way and, as Copis had pointed out, gods don't drive into town looking like dr
owned rats. That was another dangerous variable. It didn't look as if it was going to rain in the next hour or so, but after that it'd be touch and go; they could risk rushing the act and losing the thread, or they could play it out at the proper pace and risk a cloudburst, which would scupper their credibility in a few moments, or they could time it exactly right and use the rain as part of the act (really impressive if they pulled it off, disastrous if they didn't). It didn't help his nerves to reflect that the penalty for screwing up was anything between getting pelted with donkey shit and a selection of nasty, painful ways to die; whereas in towns, Copis had told him, charlatans are treated with a certain degree of good humour, out in the sticks they don't take kindly to being made fools of.
Eventually the men showed up and pushed their way through to the front of the crowd. Poldarn was annoyed that he couldn't look directly at these people, since he wanted to study the shapes of their faces, the variations of hair and eye colour, the range of height and build. From what he'd been able to see out of the corner of his eye, they seemed to have more in common with the dead soldiers he'd found next to him when he first woke up than with their enemies or either detachment of cavalry, but there wasn't a great deal in it either way. Mostly the men were wearing plain, light brown shirts, coats and trousers, basic homespun dyed grey and faded by the sun and rain; the women, blouses and long, heavy skirts of the same material, plain, yellow-white scarves and shawls over their heads and wrapped round their necks to cover their hair. Mostly their faces were poor, thin and ugly, though he guessed that that told him more about his background than the reality of their situation. That information, however, was far more useful to him than an insight into the daily lives of a bunch of-what was that word? Rubes? He had a strong feeling that he wasn't one of them.
Now that the men were here, still nothing happened… They watched in silence while Copis carried on with her chores (spinning them out, he guessed, though she wasn't obvious about it) and still the only sounds were the shuffling of feet in the mud, the occasional cough or sneeze, and a little muted chatter among the children, occasionally cut off by a hissed 'Sssh!'
