K Parker - Memory

'Yours?' Spenno interrupted.

Monach grinned. 'Not likely. No, Ciartan was the father, which only goes to show how dedicated Xipho is to the Order, because she can't stand him. But she spun the troops some ridiculous yarn about an immaculate conception or something of the sort, and the poor fools believed her. She's really good at manipulating the weak-minded.'

'Sounds like it.'

Monach nodded. 'I asked for that, didn't I? Anyway, that's about it. Ever since, we've been wandering about the countryside, living hand to mouth out of what we can scare people into giving us. We've had a few skirmishes with government troops, a couple of minor collisions with the Amathy house, and for some reason nobody ever saw fit to explain to me, we sort of ended up here, in Tulice. Probably Xipho had some reason for wanting to be here, because I have an idea she's always got a reason for everything. But she's gone-not dead or anything, she just disappeared a short while back. Took the baby, but left me to mind the army. The baby would've been less trouble-I've been landed with a thousand helpless infants to keep fed and changed.'

'I see.' Spenno was sitting with his elbows on his knees, looking at Monach like a painter studying a spider's web before making his preliminary sketches. 'And the troops: they still think you're the true Redeemer?'

Monach laughed. 'I doubt it very much,' he said. 'About three-quarters of the original mob have quietly deserted since Cric. I think the ones who're still here just don't have anywhere else to go, or they don't like the idea of working for a living. Xipho didn't seem too bothered about the desertions, so long as the sword-monks stayed with us; and most of them have, though don't ask me why. I'm pretty much convinced none of them think I'm the Son of God or whatever; most of them've known me since I was fourteen.' He smiled bleakly. 'I was the little fat kid who hung around with the big tall ones so as not to get bullied. The Earwig, my nickname was. Hardly your ideal solar-hero material.'

'That's interesting,' Spenno said neutrally. 'And now here you are, and you've got hold of the first working prototype of the Poldarn's Flute project, which is the biggest military secret in the whole Empire. And you reckon it just sort of happened that way, more by luck than judgement.'

Monach yawned. 'It's possible,' he said, 'but so are three-headed chickens. No, I think Xipho planned all this, like she plans everything. I think that she's got a little bit of paper tucked down her front where she's written down every time I'm going to take a shit for the next five years, assuming I'll be allowed to live that long. But I'm used to that-I was brought up to run errands for Father Tutor. It was what I could do for religion.'

Spenno was silent for a while; then he said; 'Do you think she's got another bit of paper headed "Ciartan"?'

'Probably got bits of paper for everybody in the whole world. A bit like a god, really.' He looked up, smiling crookedly. 'You know, maybe I got it wrong, back when I was sent to find the god in the cart. Maybe she was the one I was meant to be tracking.'

'Sorry?' Spenno said. 'You lost me.'

'Doesn't matter. Anyway, I don't believe in gods, only in religion. You know what I'd really like to do? I'd like to wait till it's pitch dark tonight, and then crawl out under the gate and get as far away from here as I possibly can.'

'Wouldn't we all?' Spenno said. 'But where'd you go?'

Monach pursed his lips. 'Oddly enough, I've thought about that. There's other countries, you know, a long way away across the sea. There's the one Ciartan came from, for one. Or the place where the raiders live, though I don't suppose they'd want me. Still, I'm not exactly welcome here, either.'

Spenno looked at him for a while; then he said: 'You know what? For an educated man, you don't think much.'

'Wasn't brought up to think,' Monach replied. 'Thinking blurs the moment, remember? Don't think, just draw, that's the whole point of religion.'

It was Spenno's turn to yawn. 'If you say so. I think I missed that bit, or else I'd left before we got on to it. So what's you going to do?'

'Not sure. I think that when Brigadier Muno shows up, I'm going to point your Poldarn's Flutes at him and hope they don't blow me up when I give the order to set them off. How does that sound? Reasonable?'

'Don't ask me,' Spenno replied. 'I'm just the engineer.'

Monach looked up at him, and something dropped into place in his mind. 'Are you, though?' he said. 'I'm not so sure about that.'

'What do you mean?'

Monach straightened up a little in his chair. 'For one thing,' he said, 'you're sounding different. The folksy turns of phrase, and the Tulice accent you could cut with a knife. They were out of place anyway,' he added, 'for someone who spent-how long were you at Deymeson? Three years?'

'Four.'

'Four years. They'd have kicked that accent out of you inside a month. All sword-monks talk like they've just burned the roofs of their mouths drinking hot soup-it's the rule. And how did you come to be here, anyway? You never did tell me.'

Spenno grinned. 'Same way as you,' he said. 'There's some bugger somewhere with a little bit of paper with my name at the top.'

Monach thought about that for a moment. 'You were sent here. Posted, like a soldier.'

'Sort of. More like a merchant company or a bank; in places that aren't important enough to have a regular office, they have an agent, someone who looks after their interests there when the need arises. Same with me. What I do for a living is cast bells, because that's what I'm good at, it's what I'm for; but one day a year every five years or so I have to do a little job for the Order. It's no big deal.'

For some reason, Monach felt his skin crawl, and at the back of his mind he thought of how a flock of crows sends out its scouts to see where it's safe for the main body to feed: one tiny part of the great group mind, but containing the whole. 'But that doesn't matter any more,' he said. 'The Order's over and done with, isn't it? Ever since Deymeson-'

Spenno nodded slowly. 'Of course,' he said. 'I'd forgotten, you're right. Good riddance, too. I never did figure out what good it was supposed to be to anybody.'

'First,' Copis said, 'I need to know how much you remember. Just so we don't waste time telling you things you already know.'

The fire was struggling to stay alight on a diet of wet twigs and sodden leaves. The rain was still falling, and the best they could do by way of shelter was the canopy of the cart, rigged as a rather inadequate tent on four ash poles. Poldarn felt cold through to his bones, even though he was so close to the fire that his hands were stinging. It occurred to him to ask where the baby was, but he decided against it.

'All right,' he said. 'And the answer is, not very much. I'm pretty sure that my name is Ciartan and that my father was Tursten; he was killed before I was born. When I was about sixteen, I joined the order at Deymeson. You two were in the same class as me; we learned swordfighting, mostly. Also, I think Prince Tazencius had something to do with it. I may have married his daughter, even. Apart from that-'

Gain and Copis looked at each other; then Gain said: 'That's all true. Actually, you know a lot more than that, because I told you myself.'

'You didn't ask what you told me, you asked what I can remember. There's a difference.'

Copis smiled. 'Meaning, Gain might not have been telling the truth. Fair point. After all, I lied to you from the moment I found you, back in the Bohec country. But what you just said: that's what you can actually remember?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'It's getting hard to know what's memories and what's stuff I've been told. The things that I know are memories aren't particularly helpful-like, I can remember sitting in a hide in a field of peas, killing crows with a bucketful of stones, and I can remember going with my grandfather to see the hot springs on the mountain above our house. They're proper memories, sharp and clear. But a lot of it's just remembering dreams that I've been having lately, and for all I know they're just my mind chewing over stuff that people have told me-like you,' he added, looking at Gain, 'and other people I've run into who reckon they know me. It's hard to believe that everybody's been lying to me-there'd have to be a very good reason. But what if there is a reason that good? I just don't know, is the straight answer.'