K. Parker: The Proof House

Be that as it may; they were on their way here, and when they found him they’d kill him. He felt for the nearest of his seven dead friends, found the man’s knife and took it for himself. Under normal circumstances, robbing the dead was slightly bad manners, but in this case he was confident they’d see their way to making an exception.

‘Look out!’ someone yelled – it was either Alexius or one of the seven dead men, he couldn’t tell which – just as the whole gallery jolted, as if it had been dropped. Dust filled his nose and mouth, as a second tremor jostled him on to his knees, and a third brought the roof down on top of him.

Camouflet , someone said. Big, big camouflet. We’ve undermined their gallery, hooray!

‘Wonderful,’ Bardas said aloud, and the falling dirt filled the space like an hourglass.

‘… Glorious bloody genuine hero of the war. Dug the bugger out like a truffle, we did. Thought he was one of them till someone noticed the boots.’

Bardas Loredan opened his eyes, and the light hit him. He closed them again, but not quickly enough. The pain and fear made him cry out.

‘He’s coming round, look,’ said a voice from the light. Unbelievable, that living things could survive in that scorching, agonising glare; couldn’t be real, had to be a hallucination. ‘Absolutely fucking amazing. No way he should have survived that, should have been killed instantly.’

Shows how much you know; can’t kill a man who’s dead and buried. He tried to move, but his body was all pain. The light was burning its way through his eyelids.

‘Sarge? Sarge, can you hear me?’ The voice was vaguely familiar, which was odd. What were those funny little lizard things that lived in fire? Salamanders. Where on earth would he know a salamander from, and why would it be calling him Sarge?

‘It’s quite normal,’ another voice said. ‘He’s just had a city fall on his head, it’s hardly surprising he’s feeling a bit groggy.’ That voice was familiar, as well. Two salamanders.

Alexius? Alexius, is that you? Stop playing silly buggers and put that fucking light out.

‘Sarge? Here, he’s coming round, look. Who the hell’s Alexius?’

Who are you? I can’t see you so you must be real. Did I kill you just now, in the gallery?

‘Dear gods,’ said yet another salamander, ‘he’s well away. Crazy as a barrelful of ferrets.’

‘Like I said, he just had Ap’ Escatoy land on his nut, what do you expect? He’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’

There was no getting away from it, he was going to have to open his eyes sooner or later. The light was seeping in under his eyelids anyhow, getting into his brain. Did I die and turn into a salamander too, Alexius? You should have warned me. He opened his eyes.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked, blinking.

All he could make out at first was a shape: a big brown oval, looming over him. This is how humans must look to a carp in a fish-pond. No wonder the buggers swim away.

‘Sarge?’ said the oval. ‘It’s me, Malicho. Corporal Malicho, you remember?’

Loredan shook his head; painful operation. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You don’t look anything like him.’

‘It’s me, Sarge, straight up. Here, Dollus, tell him it’s me.’

There was another oval, on the edge of the salamander pool. ‘Think about it, Malicho. He’s never seen you before. Never seen any of us, come to that. And we’d never seen him before now, if you think about it.’

‘Then how do we know it really is him?’ someone else asked. ‘Maybe he really is one of them. Hey, don’t look at me like that, I’m just saying it’s possible.’

‘It’s him,’ said the salamander Malicho, firmly. ‘I’d know that voice anywhere. Sarge, wake up. It’s all right, it’s us. It’s seventh shift, what’s left of us. You’re going to be all right. We dug you out after the camouflet went up. The war’s over. We won.’

The strain of keeping his eyelids open was unbearable; he could feel the muscles tearing like cloth. ‘We won?’

‘That’s right. We brought down the bastion, the gate fell in, we stormed the city. We won.’

‘Oh.’ What war would that be? I don’t remember anything about any war. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

‘He hasn’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ a salamander said. ‘Come on, Malicho, let the poor bugger get some rest.’

The legate could recognise cinnamon, and cloves, of course; a trace of ginger, oil of violets, the tiniest savour of jasmine. The one special ingredient eluded him, however. It was infuriating.

‘The family,’ the colonel was saying, ‘is quite well known, apparently. There was a sister who ran the bank on Scona-’

‘Scona.’ The legate carefully put down the tiny silver cup. ‘I think I’ve heard that name somewhere. Wasn’t there a war?’

‘Very small-scale,’ the colonel replied. ‘But it caused a brief flutter on the exchanges. There’s also a brother who’s some sort of minor warlord in a place called Mesoge. And of course, our man was in charge of the last defence of Perimadeia.’

‘Really.’ Honeysuckle? No, it was a different sort of sweetness; not as dry. ‘Quite an illustrious family, then.’

‘Actually, no,’ the colonel replied, smiling. ‘Their father was a tenant farmer somewhere. But that’s all by the by. A remarkable man, for an outsider. We should do something for him. The army would like it.’

The legate inclined his head slightly. ‘I’ll have to think about that,’ he said. ‘The line between rewarding merit and fostering the cult of personality is painfully thin in these cases. As a matter of policy -’ (Honey; it was honey flavoured with something. No wonder it was so elusive.) ‘- as a matter of policy,’ he repeated, ‘nowadays we prefer to put the accent on team effort and group achievement; and from what I gather, that would be entirely appropriate in this case.’

The colonel nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘To a certain extent, that’s precisely what we should be doing. But Sergeant Loredan has already become something of a legend in the army. If we don’t recognise him officially, it may prove counterproductive to recognise the unit as a whole. The soldiers are very loyal to their own; that’s what gives them their edge, of course.’

‘Indeed.’ The legate didn’t frown, but he didn’t much like what he was hearing. Nevertheless, it was a minor issue. ‘Well,’ he said, lifting the cup again, ‘I don’t suppose it’ll hurt if we give this man his moment of glory. A laurel crown, I suggest, and a prominent place in the triumph, if he’s going to be up to it. And then a promotion.’

The colonel acknowledged the suitability of the suggestion. A promotion meant a transfer, a transfer would take him away from the soldiers who’d chosen him as their immediate object of loyalty. ‘Citizenship?’ he asked. ‘Or perhaps not. There are precedents, of course.’

‘I shall have to refer that back to the provincial office,’ the legate said. ‘A precedent isn’t the same thing as a rule, or even a custom of the service. Just because something’s acknowledged to have happened once doesn’t necessarily mean it has to happen again.’

The colonel didn’t say anything, but he let the issue lie between them. The legate had his political masters, but he had an army to motivate. And after all, he had just taken Ap’ Escatoy.

‘Forgive me,’ said the legate suddenly, ‘but I really do have to know. Is it the honey?’

The colonel smiled. ‘How extremely perceptive,’ he said. ‘Yes, indeed; it’s quite rare, a speciality of this region. At least, it’s not from here, they import it from away up in the north, but this is the only known outlet for it. It’s the heather.’