K Parker: Pattern

'I suppose so,' he'd replied. 'But it's none of my business, really.'

'I think you ought to do something about it,' Egil had said. 'Like I ought to tell Dad a thing or two, only I haven't. Not yet, at any rate.'

That had been enough; so he'd gone into the barn and found a small axe. Then he told Egil to take him to the place where he'd last seen the two men. They were easy enough to track down, and when he confronted them, they didn't seem the least bit worried-not until he pulled the axe out from under his coat and pecked it into the sides of their heads, one after the other, as neat and quick as a bird with a worm.

Egil was scared stiff, but he'd told him, 'It'll be all right, they're only offcomers. Nobody's going to miss them, and if they do, they won't care.' So they dragged the bodies up the mountain-it took a long time and wore them out-and pitched them into the big crack where the hot springs burst out. Then they went home, and he'd told everyone a story about having a bad feeling about something and going up the mountain and finding Egil lying there all bloody, after being chased and batted about by a bear. Everyone thanked him and told him how well he'd done; and later on, he took the little axe and tossed it into a ditch, in that same field where he'd killed all those crows a short while before he diverted the fire-stream.

And that was how Egil had known, and why he couldn't tell anybody; it was lucky that he'd got a touch of the same knack of hiding his thoughts, because nobody ever seemed to have found out the truth from him. (Though, looking back, there had been that off-relation who'd come to visit, and who'd been so pleased when he'd heard he'd lost his memory; and Hart too. Maybe they'd seen a little of it in Egil's mind, enough to let them know there was something wrong.)

Shortly after he'd killed the two men, Herda had told him about the baby; he'd gone to stay with one of Halder's friends, hoping he'd get over it, but there wasn't much chance of that. Then some men had called at the farm, talking about going raiding come the autumn, and he'd asked to go with them. They'd said yes, and nobody'd seemed to mind; and on the way there, they'd started talking about how useful it would be to have a spy inside the Empire, someone who'd stay there and find out about the place, stuff that'd be useful to the raiding parties. That seemed like the best possible idea: a new start in a new country where nobody at all knew him, where he'd have a second chance at his life, all the mistakes wiped away.

He remembered all that; and now he'd come home and married Colsceg and Herda's daughter, to please his grandfather by beginning a clean new life, his second fresh start. In a way, it was ludicrous, as if the only reason he'd been allowed to forget what had happened for a while was so that he'd stroll blithely into his own trap, do something so unbearably wrong that even he would never have done it if only he'd known. Tactically, it was inspired. Whoever it was who'd thought of it deserved to be congratulated for their imagination, economy of force and painstaking attention to detail.

Well, he thought; time I wasn't here.

It was still early. If he took a horse and rode quickly, he could be on the other side of the mountain before they'd even noticed he was gone. A few days at a good pace, assuming he didn't get lost and start going the wrong way, would get him to the coast, and it wasn't long till the start of the raiding season, a few weeks at most before the first ships left for the Empire. Till then, he'd have to find work, doing the sort of thing offcomers and outsiders were allowed to do, but something told him he'd manage somehow or other. One thing he couldn't do was stay here another day; even if he could still mask his thoughts from the others (from Elja? Little chance of that), it couldn't be long before Geir's son got back from telling Colsceg about Elja being pregnant-and what if Egil came back with him? But if he went away immediately, there was a chance that nobody else would ever know; and what nobody knew didn't exist, for all practical purposes. And one had to be practical, or else how the hell could anybody expect to survive?

That wasn't the only reason why he ought to leave; but it would do as well as any other. He stood up, wincing at the cramp in his legs, and went over to the stable.

When he opened the door, he realised he wasn't alone. Someone else was in there, he could hear movement. Whoever it was, he was acting as though he had a right to be there; Poldarn heard the sound of a bridle jingling as it was lifted onto a hook. That told him that the stranger had stabled his horse and was putting the harness away neatly, in the proper methodical fashion. Look after your horse before you look after yourself (someone had told him that, years ago, and he knew it was the right thing to do). Taking pains to walk silently, he headed for the sound, and presently he discovered the source. It was Egil.

Either Egil knew he was there, or it was pure coincidence that he turned round at exactly that moment, leaving Poldarn no time to get out of sight. They stared at each other for a moment; then Egil said, 'I heard the news.' He had his saddle in one hand, and a rusty, pitted old axe in the other. Poldarn recognised it as the one he'd found in the ditch.

'What news?' Poldarn said.

'About Elja, of course,' Egil replied. Without breaking eye contact, he let the saddle fall off his forearm onto the ground. 'Judging by the way you're looking at me, I think you know why I hurried over here as soon as I heard.'

Poldarn nodded.

'Fine,' Egil said, 'because I didn't want to have to explain it to you, and I reckoned you had a right to know, before we settled things.'

'You think there's something to settle, then,' Poldarn said.

'Yes. Don't you?'

'I suppose so. And you look like you've made your mind up already, so there's no point arguing. What sort of settlement had you in mind?'

Egil shook his head. 'Seems to me there isn't much choice,' he replied. 'You know what I mean.'

The axe head was still black, crusted with flakes of rust, but the cutting edge had been worked up recently with a stone. 'It doesn't take a mind-reader to know that,' Poldarn replied. 'Have you told anybody else?'

'Are you out of your mind? No, of course not. And I'm not planning to, either. The way I see it, there's only two of us that know, and that's one too many.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Poldarn could see a hayfork, just out of arm's reach to his left. 'I'll go along with that,' he said. 'So, what are you going to do?'

Egil twitched, as if he'd been about to move but had decided not to, or had found that he couldn't. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'I hadn't thought that far ahead. I suppose that if I'd got here and you'd been still asleep, I was going to cut your throat as you lay there. But you're here now, which is much better. At least we can be straightforward about it.'

Poldarn took a deep breath, then let it go. 'You're going to kill me, then.'

'I don't really see any other way, do you?'

'Go on, then,' Poldarn told him.

Egil stood perfectly still for a moment or so; then he took a long stride forward and swung the axe over his head. As soon as his arm started to move, Poldarn knew that it wasn't going to be difficult or dangerous, or anything like that. Even as he sidestepped the cut and reached for the hay-fork, it seemed to him as though he was remembering something from long ago, a scene he'd witnessed, maybe something from a recurring dream. The fork handle snuggled comfortably into his right hand; he took a short step diagonally, passing behind Egil's right shoulder, and as his foot touched the floor the top half of the handle dropped into his left hand. The thrust itself must have happened, because the results were plainly obvious a fraction of a second later, but afterwards Poldarn never could remember what he did. All he remembered was the instant when the tips of the fork's four slim tines showed through the back of Egil's coat, like the growing season's first green shoots.