K Parker - Memory

He took another look at the camp and the sleepers. He could see the man who was supposed to be keeping watch; he was sitting apart from the others, on slightly higher ground, with his back to the trunk of an old, fat copper beech. Maybe he wasn't used to marching all day in difficult terrain; he'd fallen asleep at his post, his halberd lying on the ground beside him where it had slipped through his fingers. Getting past him wouldn't be hard, and neither would taking his weapon; but the rest of them'd be waking up any time now-it was well on the way to getting light. If he was going to go, he had to go now.

Well, he thought, why not? If they caught him before he reached Dui Chirra, they had orders not to kill him. And on general principles, it was better to do something, even something that turned out to be bloody stupid, than hold still and allow things to be done to you.

Painfully and cautiously, he stood up. Dui Chirra it was, then. But first, he had to get out of this clearing.

Something else they almost certainly taught at Deymeson: how to walk about in a forest without making an unspeakable noise. Unfortunately, unlike drawing a sword and killing people, he didn't seem to have learned it well enough for it to have become second nature to him. Maybe it had been something you could only do as an extra, outside regular hours, along with pottery and classical Thurmian literature, and he hadn't bothered with it.

But the sentry turned out to be one of those happy people who can sleep through anything, including an escaping prisoner standing on his hand; so, in spite of forgetting to steal the halberd and having to go back for it, Poldarn made the edge of the clearing and set off into the forest, heading (he hoped) north. All he had to guide himself by was a very hazy recollection of the orientation of the stars-assuming the little white cluster he thought was the Chain wasn't in fact the Seven Sleepers-and a faint taste of woodsmoke on the gentle breeze.

Accordingly, he was as surprised as he was pleased when, about three hours after sunrise, he walked out of a thick curtain of holly and found himself standing on the edge of a broad rutted road. It wasn't where he'd expected to find himself, needless to say, since he'd been heading for the colliers' camp. But there was only one road that this could possibly be: the main post road from Falcata to Dui Chirra. Somehow he'd contrived to cut a day's march off his journey.

Amazing, Poldarn thought. I really should get lost more often.

By now, he had the sun to steer by, so he didn't hesitate before turning left, due west, up a gently rising slope. There were no fresh footprints or wheel tracks in the mud, and the ruts were full of dirty brown water, knee-deep. Obviously not the busiest road in the Empire, and that was reassuring; the destroyers of Falcata hadn't come this way, and he wasn't likely to catch them up round the next bend.

That evening, after a thoroughly exhausting day of picking his way between the ruts, he was eventually forced off the road by a shower of heavy rain, which drove him into the shelter of the trees. He didn't want to lose any time, since there was no knowing if Velzen and the soldiers were on his trail or how far behind they were, but blundering into a pothole in the dark and damaging himself would slow him up even more than stopping for a few hours. He found another patch of dense, scrubby holly and crawled into it to shelter from the rain, not that he could get any wetter than he was already. The thought of his dry shack inside the foundry stockade seemed almost unbearably luxurious. All he had to do was get to Dui Chirra and he'd practically be in paradise, because what more could anybody possibly want out of life than food, a change of clothes and a warm fire?

Poldarn must have fallen asleep; it was light again, though the rain was still falling as briskly as it had been when he'd closed his eyes. But there was another sound beside the patter of falling water on leaves and branches: the creak of wheels and the spattering noise of hooves in mud. Cautiously he peered through the holly branches and saw a small cart with an oiled-leather canopy.

Joy. Whoever they were, they must be going to Dui Chirra, or at least passing by it; and they'd have to have hearts of stone to refuse him a lift. He pushed out through the holly, hardly noticing the scatches on his face and hands, and charged across to meet the cart. Through the curtain of rain he could just make out two faces under the canopy.

'Hey,' he shouted, 'wait up. Are you going to Dui Chirra?'

'Yes,' someone called back. 'Want a lift?'

'You bet,' Poldarn yelled, splashing through the mud at a run. The cart stopped, and he hauled himself up onto the box as the two people sitting there budged up to give him room. The driver was a woman, though he couldn't see her face past the shoulder of the man next to her who was all muffled up in a hooded coat and a blanket. 'Thanks,' he added, as he sat down.

'No problem.' The man turned his face towards him, and grinned. 'You've saved us the job of looking for you. Hello, Ciartan.'

Before he could move, the man leaned forward and grabbed his collar. 'It is you, isn't it?' he said. 'Yes, thought so. Well, this is a happy coincidence.'

Looking at the man's face was like looking at his own reflection: the same white, melted, hairless skin. 'Gain,' Poldarn said.

'Like I said,' replied Gain Aciava, 'we were just on our way to look for you. What're you doing out of the camp? You aren't supposed to leave.'

Gain let go of Poldarn's collar. 'I ran away,' Poldarn replied. 'But then I sort of got into trouble, so I'm heading back. But what're you doing here? They said you were arrested by soldiers.'

'That's right.' Gain was smiling. 'Poor buggers,' he said. 'They're dead now, and it wasn't even their mistake. Just unlucky.'

'I don't understand,' Poldarn said. 'What happened?'

'They arrested the wrong man,' Gain said. 'It was you they were after; but that clown Muno gave them me instead. He'll say it was just a case of mistaken identity, but my guess is he was trying to save your life, repaying the family debt. His nephew,' Gain explained, as Poldarn stared at him blankly. 'One good turn deserving another, and all that. But anyway, it's all been sorted out now, and here we are. Good to see you again.'

No, it isn't, Poldarn thought; and then the driver reached up with her left hand and pushed aside the cowl of her hood, so that he could see her face. 'Hello, Ciartan,' she said.

For a moment he couldn't decide what to do. If he tried to jump off the cart, Gain would grab hold of him, and there'd be a fight; he suddenly remembered that he'd left the halberd behind in the holly bushes, not that it'd have done him any good at such close quarters. Besides, he had no idea whether he wanted to escape or not-it was precisely the sort of useful knowledge that he'd been having to do without ever since he'd woken up in the mud beside the Bohec river three years ago.

He took a deep breath and let it go slowly. At the most fundamental level, it was a choice between walking in the rain or riding in a covered cart. No contest.

'Hello, Copis,' he replied.

'You're getting better,' she said. 'The last two times I've been driving in a cart with a man and met you on the road, you've killed him. And don't call me Copis,' she added. 'My name's Xipho-or had you forgotten?'

'You see,' Gain interrupted, before he could reply, 'she hasn't changed a bit, even after all these years. Next she'll be saying she won't help you with your homework.'

'Shut up, Gain,' Copis said dismissively, like a mother automatically rebuking a difficult child. 'Well,' she went on, 'I'd like to say you're looking good, but that'd be lying. You look ghastly, just like the idiot boy here. Somebody should've told you two not to play with fire.'