K Parker - Memory

Tazencius shrugged; so much for all that.

'Anyway,' he went on, 'you made the usual arrangements with the savages for the coming season; and then you reported back to Cordomine. The idea was, as I've told you, that you would send them strolling blithely into an ambush. But by this stage, I'd found out, from spies of my own in the Amathy house, that you'd turned traitor on me. I gave orders for my agent in the House to kill you-his reward was to be Feron Amathy in your stead-but he failed. You escaped and turned to Cordomine for protection. He was in an awkward position. Needless to say, he hadn't dared to let Cronan in on the secret; Cronan was far too straightforward to play the game out quietly, he'd have told the Emperor all about me and the Amathy house being in league with the savages, and I'd have been forced to mobilise both of my allies against the government in a straightforward civil war-and together, the House and the savages would probably have won, but not conclusively; we'd have seized the Bohec valley, perhaps, and I'd have set myself up as a rival Emperor, hated as a despicable traitor in the city, and everything would have descended into a chaotic mess. So although Cordomine needed you to deliver the savages and the House into Cronan's hands for execution, he couldn't save you openly from your outraged followers in the House. The best he could do was smuggle you to safety, using the resources of the Order; he sent his bodyguards to escort you from Josequin to Torcea, and Father Tutor sent his best agent, Xipho Dorunoxy, just in case something went wrong.

'Something did go wrong: the House's trackers, who'd been following you, caught up with you and your escort beside the river. There was a fight; the trackers and the escort wiped each other out, you were knocked over the head and lost your memory. Xipho Dorunoxy found you and sent a message to Deymeson for instructions. That was the moment when everything began to fall apart.'

Tazencius stopped talking and took a long drink. Poldarn took the opportunity to study distances and angles, make estimates of time.

'The consequence were as follows,' Tazencius went on. 'You failed to turn up at your rendezvous with the savages, to give them the information they needed to carry out the plans you'd previously outlined for them. They knew they had to attack certain places-Deymeson was one of them, I'd decided to get rid of the Order once and for all-but they didn't even know where these places were, let alone the safe and inconspicuous ways of getting there and getting safely back. They decided to set out anyway, hoping to find you, or that you'd catch up with them along the way. Your people are amazingly stupid, Ciartan.

'The new leader of the Amathy house, meanwhile, had bought acceptance as your replacement by promising them a major prize, namely Josequin. They collected their payment, but the savages didn't show up to give them the support they'd expected. Things weren't right, and they were terrified of being found out. They withdrew in confusion and therefore weren't on hand when I needed them, later.

'Then things got worse, rapidly. Your old tutor changed his mind about what had to be done. I think it was some horrible coincidence, some prophecy accidentally fulfilled; he always was a mystic at heart, with far more faith than is good for a priest. In any event, he was suddenly convinced that you were none other than the God in the Cart, harbinger of the end of the world-I think it was the fact that you'd lost your memory, but I'm just speculating-and that it would be sacrilege to impede your disastrous progress in any way. He sent word to his most faithful servant, Xipho Dorunoxy (who by this time had retrieved you from where you'd got lost), and told her that her duty was henceforth to act as your priestess and acolyte, in accordance with the scriptures that foretell Poldarn's second coming. She coped splendidly, I suppose. She knew that the whole point about the God in the Cart is that He doesn't know who He is; by sheer fluke, she'd been using the cover of the fraudulent god as she followed you around. When you accidentally killed the false Poldarn, she made you take his place-the true god pretending to be Himself in order to cheat rustics out of loose change; no wonder the delicious irony of the whole thing was enough to unhinge your erstwhile tutor's brain. Cordomine had him killed as soon as he could, of course; but not before the old priest had sent his other faithful servant, another classmate of yours whose name escapes me, first to confirm that you really were the god (which apparently he did, to Father Tutor's satisfaction) and then to wreck Cordomine's plans for saving the Empire from you and me by murdering General Cronan.

'He failed, of course, but by then everything had come loose, so to speak. Cordomine found you, purely by chance, at an inn in Sansory, but he didn't know that you'd lost your memory; he merely thought you were playing some new game, and before he could find out the truth or take effective action, the Amathy house caught up with you. Cordomine's guards stopped them from catching you and you escaped. In the meantime, the savages were blundering wildly through the countryside. For my part, I had no choice but to use the few resources I had to make an overt bid for the throne. I thought I could rely on the Amathy house. I was wrong. A few government soldiers joined me, but very few; I lost a battle, was captured and sent to Torcea to explain myself and be executed. Quite brilliantly, I managed to elude my guards, steal a horse and escape. But, just when I thought that for once luck was on my side, my horse was startled by a rocketing pheasant in the woods; I was thrown and broke my leg. And who should find me but you.' Tazencius shook his head sadly, as if trying to express his disappointment with Fortune, from whom he'd expected better. 'It was a pretty charade we all played out that night. The members of my escort were under orders to make it seem as though I was a noble prince returning home on state business: the government believed I enjoyed far more support than I actually had, and thought that if I was seen being dragged away in chains, loyal peasants would abandon the plough and the hoe and rescue me. I was desperate not to let my guards find out that I was on speaking terms with the notorious Feron Amathy (they didn't even recognise you in the event, but by then it was too late), and of course I didn't know that you'd lost your memory and didn't have the faintest idea who I was. Finally I managed to escape, though I had to cut your colleague's throat first, and the guards came after me, though I shook them off quite easily. After enormous hardship and suffering I reached the Amathy house camp; and your replacement immediately sent me to General Cronan, as a peace offering.

'Things looked bad for me. True, the savages destroyed Deymeson. But then Cronan caught up with them and cut them to pieces, and I thought I was done for. It was sheer good luck that he blundered into them after the battle, and that they killed him and (thanks to you) allowed me to escape. I suppose I should be grateful to you for that, but I'm not. If it wasn't for Lysalis here, I'd have you hung up in one of those frames and smash every bone in your body with my bare hands. Instead,' and he took a deep breath, 'I'm obliged to forgive you, as your former colleagues in the House have done. We are prepared to trust you, simply because you have nowhere else to go, nobody left to betray us to; and because we still need you, God help us all.'

Poldarn looked at him. 'Why?' he said.

Tazencius sighed, as though he was dealing with a particularly stupid child. 'The savages,' he replied. 'They've been shown the way to the dairy, so to speak. We need to make sure the attacks will cease, for ever, which presumably means buying them off; and, tragically, you're still the only man in the Empire capable of talking to the horrible creatures. It changes one's perspective somewhat,' he continued mildly, 'actually getting one's heart's desire. True, I only wanted the Empire so that I could punish Cronan Suilven; after his death, I needed it because it was the only hope I had of staying alive. But now, here I am; all that blood and burning and waste was to get me here. In return, I suppose I have some sort of moral obligation to be a good Emperor, to protect the best interests of the people. One thing I can do is make sure the savages don't come back; also, I can pay off the Amathy house. Creating all the problems makes it easier to solve them. And you,' he added, with resigned distaste. 'You as well. Since I can't kill you, I shall have to pay you off too.'