K Parker - Memory

Poldarn was thinking: all the cities burned and people killed, and all you can find to care about is love? You stupid bloody woman. But he said, 'So what are we going to do now?'

She laughed. 'Oh, anything you like,' she said. 'Anything at all. Don't listen to them when they tell you Cleapho's the second most powerful person in the Empire. My father's the second most powerful person in the Empire; because there's all sorts of things he can do but daren't, but there's nothing he wouldn't do for me.' She looked him over as though he was a new pair of shoes. 'First,' she said, 'I think we'll make your peace with Dad-he'd have had you killed like that if he thought I wouldn't find out, but as soon as he realises I know you're still alive and right here with me, that makes you the safest man in the world. Then I think we'll get him to recognise you as the heir to the throne. After all, you're my husband, and Choizen's dead, Turvo's not legitimate issue and the Empire isn't really ready for a woman Emperor, so there isn't actually any choice. Do you know, Turvo really likes you a lot? Reckons he owes you his life, and he always admired you, all through school. He even liked Choizen, which was more than I ever did; oh, I loved him, of course, but he was an obnoxious little monster, bumptious and vicious and so wanting to be Deymeson-trained like his father. He worshipped you, of course, which was easy enough for him to do since he'd practically never set eyes on you since he was a baby. Yes, I think that's what we'll do with you, my love: we'll make you into an Emperor. That'll serve you right for being with that bitch, even if you didn't know what you were doing.'

Suddenly she laughed. 'My God, Ciartan,' she said, 'you should see yourself. I've seen happier-looking faces nailed to the city gate.'

'I was just thinking,' he said softly. 'You say you rescued me-'

'I did rescue you.'

'I believe you,' he told her. 'But you thought I was coming here to kill your father. How can you say you love me when-?'

She smiled at him as if he was simple. 'Ciartan, my love,' she said. 'You're my husband, he's my father. What on earth makes you think I'd have a problem with loving men just because they're murderers?' She hesitated, and frowned. 'You said that as if that wasn't what you really came for,' she said. 'You aren't trying to tell me you weren't planning to kill him after all? Because I may be morally bankrupt, but I'm not stupid-'

'It doesn't matter,' he said. 'I've changed my mind. I don't want to kill anyone any more.'

She looked at him quizzically. 'Oh? How come?'

'Because it doesn't seem important now,' he said. 'I thought my life was empty, and suddenly it's not.'

'Because I love you?'

'Because somebody-Because of something I did,' he said slowly, 'which I'd rather not tell you about. But now everything's different; I don't have to be the sort of man I used to be. I'd got it into my head that I had to put things right, and the only way someone like me could do that was by another killing, because that's all I am, ever since I was sent here by my grandfather, and the monks and your father got hold of me, and they all wanted to use me as a weapon. First I thought I could get by just by running away. But everywhere I went and everything I did, I made trouble, and everything turned to blood and fire, and I had to assume it was me, who I really was. But if only I could escape from that, be someone else: I had the chance, you see-I woke up one day and my memory was gone; and now even my face. I'm trying to tell myself, everything bad I've done is just shadows thrown by the past, because no matter what I tell myself to do, I've always been looking back, trying to see what's there.' He looked at her, then looked away. 'You know me much better than I do,' he said. 'What do you think? What I really came here to do was get rid of myself, and someone else as bad as me while I was at it, but that was really just an excuse. Do you think I can start again, properly this time?'

Her eyes were very wide. 'No,' she said. 'There's no way you could ever change, not so it'd make a difference. If you went away as far as it's possible to go, where nobody knew you, it wouldn't change anything: you'd still be exactly the same. Not even if you lived in an oasis in the desert, you'd be red to the wrists in someone's blood inside a year. Oh, you aren't evil, in the way that some people are. You just carry it around with you; like those people who don't catch the plague themselves but give it to everybody they meet. I'm sorry, but that's exactly who you are, and nothing's ever going to change that.'

Poldarn sighed. He knew all that, but somehow hearing it from someone else, someone who knew him better than he could ever know himself, made it feel like being sentenced to death. 'The most evil man in the world,' he said. 'I've been called that by several people who ought to know. Am I?'

'Not evil,' she said, 'I just told you that. Like you said just now, you're a weapon. Maybe if someone took hold of you and used you for something good, it'd be different. But if you take a step back and consider all the people in your life, you can see that's not going to happen. And you can't make it happen all by yourself. If you jump out of the scabbard, people just trip over you and cut themselves.'

'I see,' he said. 'So, what are you planning to do with me?'

She smiled. Not affectionately. 'I'm going to keep you,' she said.

At some point, they made love, in the huge bedroom of his house. Afterwards, she rolled away and lay with her back to him. He drifted into sleep, and the river mud welled up around his face. He could hear voices above him; familiar, in a way.

'So,' said one of them, 'you're back. Welcome home.'

'You haven't won,' the other voice replied. 'You tricked me.'

'Yes, didn't I just? But the result's the same. Here you are, back with me where you belong. That's all that matters.'

'You're wrong.' The other voice was quiet, determined. 'You've got me here, and maybe you can force me to stay, but you can't stop me hating you. And I always will, now that I've seen what it could be like, out there-'

'Balls. Now you're back, it won't be a week before you slide back into the old routine. We were made for each other, you know that.'

'No.' The voice was almost shouting now. 'You only ever made me do what you wanted by threatening me, and now I'm here, the worst's happened. What are you going to threaten me with now? There's nothing left.'

Laughter. 'You really think so?'

'You're bluffing.'

'You know that's not true. Listen, I still have a few bits and pieces up my sleeve. I could tell you, and then you'd know; and once you knew, you could never even try and run away again, because there wouldn't be any point. But I want to be nice, I don't want to tell you if I can help it. After all, the only thing I've ever wanted is for you to be happy.'

'I don't believe you. I think the worst you ever had was what I've already found out. After all, nothing could be worse than that, apart from some of the things I've done since I left you. Eyvind and Choizen-'

More laughter. 'Funny you should mention them. You really think you did those things on your own. I was there, you just didn't see me. I'm always with you, wherever you go. You might as well try running away from your shadow.'

Pause; the other voice was choosing its words carefully. 'There's no shadows in the darkness,' it said. 'It takes light to make shadows. I've been in places darker than you, but I didn't become you. Because I knew that no matter what I did, at least I was free of you-'

'You burned your best friend to death. You killed your own son.' The voice was mocking. 'What is it they say about imitation?'

'Those things were your fault.'

'No. You killed Eyvind because you thought it was the right thing to do; and maybe it was, in that place, at that time. You killed Choizen in self-defence, because you tried to rob him on the road and he fought back. You were there on the road because you'd been laid off at the foundry, and Chiruwa fooled you into going highway robbing with him, and when you found out what he was really planning to do, you weren't bothered enough by it to walk away. You killed Carey, the fieldhand, mostly just because he was there. I had nothing to do with any of that. And there's all the soldiers, and the Deymeson monks, poor fools who had the bad luck to cross your path at the wrong time.' Dry laughter. 'And the joke is, that's nothing at all compared with what you've set in motion, just because you felt sorry for a crazy old woman in a broad-brimmed hat. But I could still tell you something about us-about me-that'd hurt you very much; you'll survive knowing, but it won't make you like yourself any more. Truth is,' the voice went on, 'I know you better than you do; so it follows that I know what's best for you, and for me too. Trust me.'