by K. J. Parker
Poldarn smiled. 'Make me an offer,' he said.
The man frowned. 'Just a moment,' he replied, then, without looking round, he bellowed, 'Acka!' at the top of his voice. A few seconds later, he did it again.
Acka turned out to be the name of a woman, his wife or just possibly his mother. She trudged back from the rail, where she'd been talking to another woman, and scowled at him. 'What d'you want?' she asked.
'Man wants to sell his horse.'
Acka shrugged, as if to say that with people like that, what can you expect? She gave the horse a very quick glance and said, 'How much?'
'Won't say. Says I should make him an offer.'
Acka rubbed a sore-looking patch on her ear with the palm of her hand. 'I don't know,' she said. 'We're overspent as it is.' She walked round the horse a couple of times, looking very sad. 'If it was a skewbald,' she said, 'that'd be different. That man from the cavalry was back yesterday, wanting skewbalds. I'm not sure,' she concluded. 'It depends how much he wants for it.'
'Make me an offer,' Poldarn repeated.
The woman pulled up one of the horse's front hooves and glanced at it. 'Wants shoeing, too,' she said. 'It's all money. Tell him we can't go above thirty.'
From what he'd gathered during his scouting tour of the market, thirty wasn't bad. 'Thirty-five,' he said. 'And I keep the saddle and tack.'
The man looked at Acka; Acka shook her head. 'Thirty-five all in,' she said, 'and we're not doing ourselves any favours. Girth's nearly rubbed through, look, and the snaffle's not worth having.'
Poldarn nodded. 'All right,' he said, holding out his hand for the money. 'You're a tight-fisted bunch in these parts, though.'
Acka fumbled in her apron pocket and produced seven silver coins. 'Ought to count himself lucky, instead of complaining,' she said, taking a firm grip of the reins. 'We'll be lucky if we see our money back on this one inside of a month.'
Poldarn took the money, nodded politely and walked away, taking care not to look round. He wasn't sure how much money thirty-five quarters was, but it was thirty-five quarters more than he'd had the night before, and he'd got rid of a piece of potentially incriminating evidence against himself, all without killing anybody, or even drawing blood. Already he was finding his new life rather more congenial than his old one.
The next thing to do was get out of sight, or at least off the streets, where there might be a risk of running into his enemies or his friends. Where there's a livestock market there's always at least one inn; in Sansory, it was called the Integrity and Honour, and of course it was full of farmers and horse traders and other similar people with loud voices and a good deal of personality. He bought a small jug of beer and some bread and cheese for two quarters, found an empty corner of the settle, just big enough for a crow to perch on, and sat down.
The men next to him were talking about some war or other. One of them, a small, thin man with very bony wrists, was saying that General Cronan had beaten Allectus, he'd beaten General Taino, and if anybody could beat the raiders, it was him. The old man to his right didn't agree; Cronan wasn't bad for a southerner, but nobody could beat the raiders; Allectus might have done it if he hadn't gone to the bad, he'd had imagination, not like the rest of them. Cronan, in the old man's opinion, didn't have imagination, and the raiders would chop him up and feed him to their children.
A round-faced man with a short beard and a new-looking blue wool shirt figured that Cronan might be able to beat the raiders if he ever got the chance, but that was hardly likely; with two major victories to his name, with the confidence and loyalty of the army and the love of the people, he was clearly too much of a security risk to be let loose in the provinces. Even if he didn't want to seize the throne and become emperor, nobody would ever believe that he didn't; in fact, as far as the man in the blue shirt was concerned, Cronan's days were numbered, and he'd been living on borrowed time ever since he won against General Taino.
The thin-wristed man and a number of the others in the group agreed with that, and even the old man nodded a couple of times. It was a tragedy, the blue-shirted man went on, but it was inevitable given the state the empire was in. Meanwhile, if anybody was going to take on the raiders and stand a chance of beating them, it would almost certainly be Feron Amathy.
A moment later, it became apparent that the blue-shirted man had said something controversial, if not downright offensive. The old man scowled and shook his head; someone else just out of Poldarn's line of sight made a rude noise and called Feron Amathy a bastard and a couple of other things Poldarn didn't catch. Nobody seemed inclined to disagree, or if they did they weren't about to risk saying so in a public place. The blue-shirted man held up his hands; all right, he said, he could understand how they felt, he felt pretty much the same way; and no, of course he didn't hold with some of the things the Amathy house had done over the years, nobody in their right mind could. The fact remained: Feron Amathy was at best a freelance, at worst a bandit chieftain and mass murderer, but he was also a first-class soldier, and since the empire had a habit of locking up its own first-class soldiers or making sure they met with accidents, who else was there? Besides, he went on, having quietened down his audience, to fight the raiders you didn't want a decent, honourable type who followed the rules of war, you wanted an evil bastard; and nobody fitted those specifications better than Feron Amathy. Of course, he added after a short pause, whether a victorious Amathy house would prove any easier to live with than the raiders was another matter entirely, the only ray of hope in the gloom being that if he did win, he'd be that much more likely to turn his thoughts towards the rich, fat cities across the bay, and with any luck he'd bugger off over there and leave the northern provinces in peace.
The old man pointed out that Feron Amathy was an evil, murdering something or other that Poldarn didn't quite catch, and furthermore he had it on good authority that a fair few of the burnings and mass slaughters blamed on the raiders were the work of the Amathy house, who thought nothing of butchering women and children to make sure there weren't any witnesses. A young man with big ears said he wasn't sure he believed that, but Feron Amathy was definitely a nasty piece of work, and entrusting the safety of the province to him would be like setting a wolf to guard the chicken shed. The man in the blue shirt said he wouldn't put anything past the Amathy house, and that all the free companies were pretty well as bad as each other, though the Amathy house was probably the worst of the lot, but take away the imperial army and the free companies and who did that leave to fight off the raiders? Well?
There was a short, resentful silence. Then the old man said that it was Feron Amathy who did for Allectus by changing sides halfway through the battle, though nobody could tell him he hadn't fixed it with Cronan well in advance; it was a tragedy for the empire, what had happened to Allectus-nobody had ever really proved that he'd decided to try and seize the throne, and even if he had he'd surely have made a better fist of the job than the halfwit they had doing it now. Allectus, he maintained, wouldn't have been afraid of the raiders, or the free companies, or anybody.
A big man in a soot-blackened leather apron coughed nervously and suggested that the reason why nobody could stop the raiders was that they were a judgement visited on the empire by the gods. That remark had the effect of killing the conversation stone dead for quite some time as the rest of the company tried to make up its mind whether they should ignore him or refute his line of argument. Before they could reach a decision, the nervous man added that it was all very well them laughing and saying it was all a parcel of kids' stories, but what about the god in the cart who turned up at that village and predicted the fall of Josequin, exactly the way it turned out to have happened?
The man in the blue shirt replied that it was a coincidence, nothing more. The nervous man didn't agree; not only had the god foretold the destruction of the city, he'd also healed the sick and raised the dead, and they didn't have to take his word for it, they could go and ask Bigal the drover, whose nephew
had gone through that village a fortnight later and heard all about it from the villagers themselves.
Apparently Bigal the drover's credibility was good with some of the company, because they looked thoughtful and didn't say anything. The blue-shirted man, however, shook his head and chuckled; as it happened, he said, a neighbour of his had been talking to a carter who'd seen this so-called god not once but twice; once at the village outside Josequin, and once about six weeks earlier, in a town whose name he couldn't remember offhand on the other side of the Mahec; and the curious thing was, the god in the village outside Josequin hadn't looked anything like the god he'd seen up north; so it stood to reason that one of them was a fake, and as far as the blue-shirted man was concerned, it was the one who was supposed to have predicted the fall of the city. Furthermore, he added, the fake god hadn't healed all the sick and raised the dead; according to his neighbour's friend the carter, it was just a couple of dead people and a dozen or so of the sick, and their friends and families had paid the priestess pretty well for the privilege.
The nervous man looked shocked and sad, and didn't say anything; the rest of the company kept quiet too, weighing their natural scepticism against the undoubted authority of Bigal the drover. After a while the bony-wristed man stood up and said that he had a living to earn even if the rest of them didn't, and if Perico could spare an hour from speculating about the gods and the end of the world, maybe he'd get on and shoe his black mare, like he'd promised to do that morning. The nervous man nodded guiltily and left with him; the man in the blue shirt finished his drink and went away; and it wasn't long before Poldarn had the settle to himself.
Without the conversation to distract him, he found himself thinking about Copis, though it wasn't a train of thought he was happy with. Sure, he couldn't blame her in the least for clearing out as soon as she smelled trouble-she'd been absolutely right, and she'd done her level best to warn him, too, and of course she didn't know about the lump of fused gold in the back of the cart because he hadn't trusted her enough to mention it, so that was his fault, too. Nevertheless, he was sorry she'd gone, particularly in such a hurry; if they had to part company, he'd have liked a few moments just to thank her, since she'd practically saved his life that night when he met her, and in spite of all the trouble he'd caused her she'd never let him down or even really complained. More to the point, she was the only friend he had, but he couldn't help but reflect that she'd certainly be a good deal safer away from him, given his habit of attracting trouble like a fresh honeycomb drawing wasps. On the positive side, at least he wasn't going to have to pretend to be the god in the cart again. That was an experience he was in no hurry to repeat.
The inn wasn't nearly as crowded as it had been when he came in, and the taproom was empty enough now to make a man sitting on his own after everyone else had gone back to work look conspicuous. It was time he was going as well.
This time he carried on past the livestock market and headed for the centre of town. There were a lot of people in the streets now, far more than he'd seen before, and they all seemed to have a definite destination in mind. He allowed himself to be swept along with them, and eventually found himself in what he recognised as the main square of the city.
It was so crowded that after a while he couldn't go any further, so he scrambled up on the back of a big stone lion, like a man standing on a stepping stone in the middle of a river, and tried to make out what was going on.
The central third of the square was divided up with posts and railings into a series of stalls, rather like the livestock market had been, but these stalls were full of men and women, all crammed in together, and a walkway had been roped off right the way round the edge. There he saw some other people, not nearly so tightly packed, and they were looking over the people in the pens-mostly just glancing, but occasionally stopping for a closer look, and now and again shouting and beckoning to attract attention. Poldarn watched as one of the penned-up people, after talking to a man on the outside for a while, scrambled over the rail and followed the man he'd been talking to down the walkway and out of sight. At once two or three men from the crowd tried to climb into the pen, whereupon a couple of harassed-looking men with long sticks appeared out of the crowd and pushed all but one of them back.
This was so curious that he had to ask someone. He didn't have long to wait; a young man of about nineteen jumped up on the lion's back beside him, rubbing his shin and pulling a face. He asked the young man what was going on.
The young man didn't understand the question.
'I'm new in town, you see,' Poldarn said. 'Actually, I'm from Thurm.' (He dredged the name up from the cellars of his mind just in time.) 'Whatever this is, we don't have anything like it back home.'
'Really?' The young man clearly found that hard to believe. 'Then how do you people find work if you don't have hiring fairs?'
Ah, he thought, right. 'Oh, we've got them all right,' he replied confidently. 'We just don't do it like this, that's all.'
'Oh,' the young man said, and went back to examining his shin. Meanwhile, two more men had been chosen from the pens, and a dozen or so others had tried to take their places and been herded back by the men with sticks. Poldarn got the impression that in Sansory there were more people needing work to do than there was work to go round; he remembered what Copis had told him, about this being a place you ended up in. Depressing thought.
All the same, he was going to have to start earning a living soon, and if this was how you went about finding work in Sansory it'd probably be a good idea to get in line. First, though, he did a little more reconnaissance, and fairly soon worked out that each stall represented a trade. That complicated the issue, since he didn't have one. 'Excuse me,' he said.
The young man looked at him.
'Sorry to bother you again,' he said, 'but what do you do if you don't have a trade? Where do you go to find someone to take you on?'
The young man grinned. 'No trade? At your age? In that case, you might as well forget it.'
Poldarn frowned. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But assuming I'm mad enough to try, what's the drill?'
'Suit yourself,' the young man replied equably. 'Look, you see that big pen there, right at the back? You go there. I'll tell you, though; if you get in the line now, and if you're really lucky, you might just get in the pen by the time the fair closes.'
'I see. And when's that?'
'Day after tomorrow.'
'Fine.' Poldarn frowned. 'All right,' he said, 'which trade's in most demand these days?'
The young man thought for a moment. 'That's a tough one,' he said. 'Clerks, probably. Not just copy clerks, mind; I'm talking about counting-house clerks, the sort who can do figuring and accounts and stuff.'
That didn't sound promising. Nevertheless, Poldarn asked which pen the clerks were in. The young man pointed; it was only slightly less crowded than the others.
'Of course,' the young man went on, 'what they're really crying out for these days is drill instructors-you know, for the companies. Only they've got their own fair, end of the month. And it's not here, it's in Mael.'
'Not much help to me, then,' Poldarn replied. 'Is there anything in that line around here?'
The young man shook his head. 'Not unless you could do bodyguarding,' he added. 'Mind you, there's a line of work where there's always more jobs than bloody fools wanting to do them. There's a reason for that, though.'
Poldarn had the feeling he was being set up as a straight man. But that didn't matter. 'Oh? What's that?'
'They keep getting killed, of course,' the young man replied with a grin. 'You'd have to be mad or bloody desperate to go in for that game.'
Poldarn nodded. 'I expect you're right,' he said. 'So where do I go to get taken on?'
It wasn't hard to find, in spite of the young man's rather elliptical directions: a small booth, rather than a stall, on the far western edge of the market. There were a couple of sad-looking types sitting outside, and three large men lounging in th
e doorway. Poldarn asked if he could get through. They didn't move. He asked again. One of the large men told him all the jobs were taken, and suggested that he should go away. Poldarn wasn't inclined to believe him, since over his shoulder he could see a line of men inside the booth waiting to be inspected. When he pointed this out to the men in the doorway, one of them tried to push him out of the way.
A few moments later, a man in a long plush robe came out of the booth. He looked at the three men lying on the ground, and then at Poldarn.
'You're hired,' he said.
'Thank you,' Poldarn replied, rubbing his elbow where he'd made it worse by jarring it on someone's teeth. 'When do I start?'
'Right away, if you like,' the man said. 'What did they do to you?'
Poldarn shrugged. 'They didn't want me to apply for the job.'
'Oh.' The man frowned. 'Serves them right, then. What's your name?'
'Poldarn.'
The man raised an eyebrow. 'That's interesting,' he said. 'Southerner?'
Poldarn nodded. 'From Thurm province,' he said, hoping he wasn't making a big mistake.
'That figures,' the man replied. 'My father always used to say they're all a bunch of vicious psychotics in Thurm. My name's Falx, by the way; Falx Roisin.'
'Pleased to meet you,' Poldarn said. 'May I ask what line of work you're in?'
Falx grinned. 'You really aren't from these parts, are you?' he said. 'I'm a carter.' He smiled. 'Just like any other carter, really, except that last time I looked I had over a hundred carts. Plus six hundred horses, a dozen warehouses, more clerks than anybody could possibly have a use for, and what they do all day I'll probably never understand. Most people in Sansory know me, for one reason or another.'
'I see,' Poldarn said. 'But you need a bodyguard.'
Falx nodded. 'Well, sort of,' he said. 'More like a sergeant-at-arms, if you know what that is. Look, I don't like standing about in the middle of all this chaos, even if you do. My house is just across the way. Come and have a drink.'
