by K. J. Parker
He stopped short, held up his hand for silence. Something was going on down below.
'Shit,' Cleapho said. 'Oh, that's wonderful. You two, hold them on the stairs.' The two soldiers who'd brought him there disappeared immediately through the door they'd just come through. 'We'll go out this way, on to the roof. That's assuming,' he added with a scowl, 'that they aren't up there already, which they probably are. God, what a mess.'
He stood up, as the other two soldiers pushed open the door behind them and led the way into a dark passage. 'Well, come on,' he said. 'I had an idea you'd be more trouble than you're worth. Next time, maybe Tazencius'll listen to me, instead of teaming up with a bunch of pirates.'
Poldarn could hear unsettling noises from the stairwell: shouting, banging, sharp, crisp metallic noises. It occurred to him that Cleapho had just sent two men to their deaths and they'd obeyed him without a moment's hesitation, obedience being for them an instinctive action, like the drawing of a sword. He decided to follow Cleapho.
The passage led out into the open air. To his right was a battlement, below which he could just see the main courtyard; on his left was the sloping side of the roof, presumably of the refectory (though he wasn't at all sure; going up the spiral staircase had messed up his sense of direction). It was just starting to get dark, and the yard was flooded with yellow light from the chambers beneath. 'Well, that's all right, then,' Cleapho was saying as the soldiers in front of them kicked open another door that apparently led into the refectory roof-space, ducked under the low lintel and climbed in. 'It's just as well one of us took the trouble to figure out the geography of this place. And I thought you were the one who was supposed to be so careful about details.'
Then it started to go badly. One of the soldiers who'd just gone through backed out again, struggling to draw his sword but without enough room to do so. It was a moment or so before Poldarn noticed the blood on his face. Cleapho swore, pushed past the soldier and started to run. Before Poldarn could follow him, someone else came through the doorway-another soldier, or at least a man in a mailshirt with a sword; he swung at the wounded guard, who ducked out of the way is as another man emerged and lunged at him with a halberd, stabbing him just under the lower lip of his breastplate. The guard made a quiet, wordless noise, and then the man with the halberd pushed hard, shoving him backwards over the battlement like someone pitching hay. Then he turned to face Poldarn, while his colleague set off after Cleapho.
Poldarn stared at the halberd blade, then quickly at the man behind it, then back at the weapon. He seemed to hear a voice in the back of his mind: watch the blade, not the man, it's the blade that'll kill you if you don't. He didn't recognise the voice but he could appreciate the value of what it was telling him. His enemy (assuming he was an enemy, not a rescuer) seemed more concerned with keeping him where he was than attacking him, but Poldarn reckoned he'd had enough of holding still and waiting to see what happened. It didn't look like there were any more of them coming up from the roofspace-no sound of footsteps or signs of movement-which implied that if he could get past this man he might have a means of escape. That was good; life had just become a lot simpler.
The trick would be to get a firm grip on the halberd shaft without being stabbed or sliced in the process. He started forwards; then, just before he was due to stick himself on the point of the halberd, he slid his rear foot down, ducked his head out of the way and let himself fall backwards on to his outstretched right hand, grabbing for the halberd shaft with his left. Disconcertingly, the soldier tried to pull the blade out of the way, as if determined not to let him hurt himself, but Poldarn was quicker anyway, got his grip and jerked the halberd out of the man's hands just as he hit the ground. The other man jumped out of the way, unable to decide for a moment whether or not to draw his sword; someone else, it appeared, who had problems with choices. He'd just made up his mind to draw when Poldarn scrambled to his knees, swung his shoulders round and threw the halberd, hitting him on the little strip of bare flesh above the collar of the mailshirt.
The bone of his neck deflected the blade a little and it flew out over the courtyard, but the man wasn't a factor any more; Poldarn was clear to get away through the door. Simplify; always simplify.
He had to duck to get through the doorway into the roof-space, and the passageway he found himself in was pitch dark. His fingers recognised the feel of rough-sawn timber on either side of him. He kept his head well down, guessing that there wasn't enough room to stand upright. It occurred to him that he should have taken the dead soldier's sword, in case he had more fighting to do, but he wasn't inclined to go back for it; fairly soon the enemy at the foot of the spiral staircase would get past the two men Cleapho had sent to die (what great cause were they dying for, he wondered; did they know what it was? Did they approve?). It would be nice to get as far down this passage as he could before they came in after him. It was likely that the passage led somewhere, or else how had the two enemy soldiers appeared from it? As to where it led, he hadn't a clue, but that held true of all passages, roads, avenues, paths and doorways as far as he was concerned. At least it appeared to be straight, without turnings to left or right to mar his brief illusion of simplicity.
The boards under his feet creaked, and he felt cobwebs in his face (they made him shudder; apparently he was one of those people who don't much care for spiders. He made a mental note, coloured in one more tiny part of the bare outline, and moved on). Every few steps he stopped briefly to listen-for footsteps in front or behind, noises from below that might tell him which part of the inn he was above-but he heard nothing helpful. He carried on, making the most of his unhindered progress. One step following another. Easy.
He nearly fell through the trapdoor at the end of the corridor; all that saved him was the intuitive feeling of being about to rest his weight on nothing, which made him hesitate and prod for a feel of the floor with his toe. Having found out that there was a hole, he knelt down and explored its extent with his fingertips; it was about a shoulder's width square, which suggested a trapdoor or a hatch. Shuffling along on his backside, he let his legs dangle over the side until his heels located what he took to be the rungs of a ladder.
It was a long climb down, and still it was too dark for him to be able to make out anything, not even vague shapes or different tones of shadow, so his sight was as useless to him as his memory. He only realised he'd reached the bottom when his heel jarred on a solid surface, and some cautious exploration with his toe confirmed that he was at the foot of the ladder, standing on something thicker and more solid than boards. Now, of course, he had to choose a direction to go in. The feeling was familiar, and he was getting heartily sick of it.
He took a deep breath, turned left and started to walk, holding his hands in front of his face in case there were any low beams or other unpleasantnesses. Twelve paces or so brought him to a wall-rough brickwork, quite a distinctive texture. He felt his way along it, bearing left again, and was rewarded by a different texture, planed wood, a doorframe and a door. Next he found cold metal, a ring about a hand's span wide. Pulling it achieved nothing, but turning it resulted in a flood of yellow light.
That complicated matters. He dodged out of the way of it, but not before he'd caught sight of someone running towards him, a man carrying a weapon. He flattened his back against the wall and, as the man came through the doorway, kicked the back of his knee, sending him stumbling to the ground. He tried to get up, but Poldarn was in a perfect position to bring a knee sharply up under the man's chin; his head shot back too quickly, too far; he landed on his shoulder, and the sound of his head hitting the ground was loud and heavy.
As good a way of announcing myself as any, if there's any more of them nearby. Well, he couldn't stay in the dark for ever. He stepped through the doorway into the cruel and unwelcome light and saw that he was in a small, empty room, which might once have been a scullery or store. He was facing yet another open door, through which he could see a big fire in a ston
e hearth, and machinery suspended in front of it from brackets mounted in the wall. He could feel the fire's heat from where he was standing, and hear the clattering of ratchets and clockwork from the machine; there were strange-looking tongs and ladles and cutting tools in racks on the walls or hanging from the lower beams, and at the edge of his vision was an enormous copper vessel, a crucible or cauldron. It was only when he noticed the small pile of cabbages on the table in the middle of the room that he realised it must be a kitchen, and the ferocious machine was a spit.
Somehow the thought that he was standing outside a kitchen made him feel both relieved and foolish, though he knew perfectly well that both emotions were unjustified. He listened again, heard nothing helpful, and tried in vain to remember what the buildings had looked like from the outside, in particular, whether there was direct access from the refectory to the kitchens. Common sense suggested that there should be, but common sense didn't seem to have had much to do with the design of this place. Then he remembered that when he'd sat down to dinner he'd noticed a fireplace as big as this one in the wall at the near end of the hall. Intuitively, he decided that the dining-hall fireplace and this one shared the same chimney, being divided by the wall directly in front of him, in which case the doorway to his left would lead to open air and flagstones; the food would go out of this door on a long stretcher, down the wall five yards, and into the back door of the hall to the serving-table, where the servers would collect and distribute it. He gasped with relief, like a man putting his head up above water after being under for a little bit too long. For once, he actually knew which way to go.
At that point, the door opened. Through it came another soldier of the type he'd decided were the enemy; he was wearing the same kind of mailshirt and holding the same kind of halberd. The pattern repeated; clarity, then complication. It was like some kind of board game.
'Bloody hell,' the soldier said. 'I thought it was you.'
Poldarn hadn't been expecting that; he'd been anticipating something straightforward and easy to deal with, such as a halberd blade shoved in his face. 'You know me?' he asked.
'What? It's me, you idiot, Sergeant Lovick. You been getting bashed on the head a lot lately or something? Quick,' he went on, before Poldarn had a chance to reply, 'straight out the door behind me, takes you across the yard to the stables, you can get a horse and clear out. I never saw you. Right?'
'But just a…'
'I said quick. Before you get us both killed.'
'What you said just now,' Poldarn protested. 'About getting bashed on the head. That's what happened, I can't remember anything. Can you-?'
Sergeant Lovick (whoever the hell he was) scowled horribly at him. 'Pack it in, will you? Haven't got time for your stupid jokes right now. Look, if anybody comes then so help me, I'll have to kill you. Go on, clear off, now.'
Poldarn could feel anger about to explode inside his head; there wasn't much he could do about it, even though he knew how much it could complicate matters. 'No,' he shouted. 'Not till you tell me.'
'I said, I haven't got time…' The man was getting angry too. 'Bloody hell, chief, can't you take anything seriously?'
Chief? Why couldn't he have used my name instead? Thoughtless, inconsiderate bastard. 'I'm not joking, you idiot. Look, can't you at least tell me my name? Do that, I promise I'll go. Word of honour.'
Before Sergeant Lovick could say anything the door behind him opened; another soldier came in, saw Poldarn; his face instantly filled with anger. 'It's all right,' Lovick said loudly, not looking round, 'I've got him, he's mine. You get back and tell them…'
'Hell as like,' the newcomer said. 'Kill the bugger now, have done with it.'
Lovick shook his head. 'Our orders were…' he began.
'Screw the orders,' the other man said, taking two steps forward, his halberd at guard. 'Not worth the risk. You try and take this bastard alive, he'll do us both before we can get him across the yard. Oh come on, man, don't be so bloody pathetic.'
Lovick's face didn't change, but suddenly he was two strides closer and the move he was making with his halberd was either a killing thrust to the face or a feint to mask an equally lethal cut to the right temple. More choices.
Poldarn decided to cheat by circumventing both possibilities. He took a standing jump backwards, which gave him a yard of clear space, then threw himself to the right, drawing the sergeant into a clubbing stroke with the butt of the halberd. The sergeant dutifully obliged, and in the fraction of a second before the steel butt-shoe crunched into the bone of his skull, he grabbed the wooden shaft and pulled hard left, drawing the beard of the cutting edge deep into the web of Lovick's right hand. As anticipated, the shock and pain were enough to make him lose his grip, and as soon as Poldarn had control of the weapon he reversed the pull into a brisk upward thrust. He misjudged it a little because Lovick flinched, and instead of driving the point into his throat he caught him square in the left eye; just as good, if not better. Before the dead man could fall backwards he pushed again, throwing the body the way a builder's labourer throws a shovelful of dirt. The other soldier had to step to his right to avoid it, and in doing so walked into a thrust to the groin, which he avoided just in time. It didn't do him much good, since it was only a feint; the killing blow hit him in the ear, and the shock of steel bursting through layers of bone and membrane jarred down the halberd shaft into Poldarn's arm, wrenching a muscle and making him grunt with pain.
From complicated back to simple in a few easy moves. He let the dead man's own weight draw him off the halberd spike, then laid the weapon across the table and rubbed his forearm where he'd hurt it. Just my luck, he thought; it didn't take much imagination to see how, if there was going to be more of this sort of thing, a pulled muscle or a sprain or a cramp, anything that detracted from the perfection of these instinctive plays he somehow knew how to make, could easily be enough to kill him. The anger that had been building up before the fight, when Lovick wouldn't answer him, tell him the one word he needed to know (and he could have said it so easily, it wouldn't have cost him anything; damn it, quite likely it would've saved his life)-all that anger was still there but directed now against these two selfish, malicious men who'd kept knowledge from him and damaged his right arm when he needed it most. It only made it worse that one of them had apparently been a friend.
The door was still open. He stopped and listened before he looked through it. There didn't seem to be anybody about. He picked up the halberd, then put it back; even though he was having to work out so much from first principles, he was fairly sure that wandering around the courtyard of a busy inn with a bloodstained halberd in his hands wasn't a good idea. Besides, he'd managed without quite well so far, and whenever he'd needed a weapon there had always been someone on hand to give him one.
It was quite dark outside by this time, although there were lanterns on sconces all round the yard. He stood for a moment outside the door-yet another choice: go to the dormitory or the refectory and try to find Copis, or do what Lovick had advised, head for the stables, or compromise and make for the coachhouse, to retrieve the cart or, at the very least, the big lump of fused gold that was bound to come in useful sooner or later…
He decided on the compromise, mostly because the coachhouse door was directly opposite, only a few seconds away. Of course, there was a fair chance of finding more soldiers there, waiting for him, but that was true of the whole inn, and quite possibly the whole world. Simplify: to the coach-house.
The coach-house was empty; no grooms and no soldiers. And no cart. That made him angry, but it wasn't unexpected, by any means; in fact, he'd resolved on a contingency plan before he even pushed open the door. This consisted of taking the back way out of the coach-house, which (if he was remembering straight) would take him into a little narrow alley that led to the hay store, which had its own direct access to the stables. Once he'd got a horse and was out into the main courtyard, the likeliest problem would be if the soldiers, the enemy, had thoug
ht to close the main gate-in which case he'd have to forget about the horse and shin over the wall somewhere. He tried to recall a suitable point for climbing over while he was saddling up the sturdy grey gelding he'd chosen, and he'd just brought to mind an ideally suitable wicket gate in the back wall of the tower courtyard as he rode through the open main gate, thereby rendering all his diligence and foresight redundant. Always the way, he thought resentfully. Just when you've managed to get all eventualities covered, along comes a stroke of good luck, and it's all been for nothing.
The streets were disconcertingly quiet, which made him wonder whether there was some kind of curfew in Sansory. The basic premise he'd founded his careful strategy on was that once he was outside the Charity and Diligence he'd be able to melt away into a crowd within seconds and become invisible; as it was, the sound of his stolen horse's hooves on the cobbles struck him as being probably the loudest noise ever made since the creation of the world.
Another choice: abandon the horse and make his way slowly but rather more unobtrusively to the nearest gate, or rely on speed and to hell with the racket. He didn't need to be told that he had no way of making an intelligent decision without knowing one vital fact, namely whether the city gates were shut at night, and if so, when.
Common sense, he thought. Why bother having gates at all if you don't close them at night? Furthermore, it'd be shameful to make the same mistake twice and fail to look at the problems that lay beyond the accomplishment of his immediate objective, getting out of town. On foot, on the north road or west along the riverbank, he'd be exposed and vulnerable; with a horse, at least he stood a chance of outrunning anybody who might be after him. If he could find somewhere quiet to sit still and wait till morning, he wouldn't have to give up the horse, but unless the enemy were stupid or in a hurry, wouldn't they think to watch the gates? Irrelevant, of course, if the gates were shut already. Complications were springing up all around him, snagging him like bindweed growing up through ivy. As for all the implications of what had happened to him that day, he really didn't want to think about them.
