K Parker - Pattern

He shook his head. 'The rebellion wasn't really important,' he said. 'It'd have petered out of its own accord, probably. We only went after Allectus because the emperor wanted to make a point of crushing him immediately, Cronan wanted another victory for his collection, your father wanted to wipe Cronan's eye-all that sort of thing, you know what it's like. No, the real problem in the Bohec valley is the raiders, that's who we really have got to deal with, before they turn the whole province into a desert.'

She looked worried, frightened. 'Do they really need you to go?' she said. 'Oh, I know I'm being silly, but you hear such dreadful things about them. Couldn't they send somebody else instead?'

He put his arm around her shoulders. 'It's all right,' he said, 'nothing's going to happen to me, I promise. Trust me.' He grinned. 'I know for a fact that nothing's going to happen to me, because I can see into the future, remember?' That had to be some sort of private joke between them, he guessed. Anyway, it seemed to reassure her. 'Sorry,' she said, 'I'd forgotten about that. Silly of me.'

'You've got to stop saying you're silly,' he said, pretending to be stern and serious. 'No, I can see me coming home from the war without a scratch, raiders or no raiders.'

'No wonder you win all these battles,' she said, trying to sound bright and cheerful. 'Though really, I suppose it's cheating.'

'Well, of course. You wouldn't want me to play fair in a battle, would you? I might get hurt.'

'True.' She leant her head against his shoulder, winced, said 'Ow!' and lifted her head again. 'Sorry,' she said.

He smiled. 'Is your neck still hurting?'

'A bit. Silly old pulled muscle. It'll be better in a day or so.'

The baby opened its eyes and started to cry. 'It's getting chilly,' he said. 'Maybe we should go inside.'

They stood up; and they must have startled the old black crow that had been perched on the top of the fountain, because it screamed angrily at them and spread its wings noisily. The woman shrieked and shrank away, squeezing the baby against her chest as the crow flapped slowly upwards, exerting itself to gain lift in the still air. For some reason he felt extremely angry, as if the crow had no right to be there, let alone startle his wife; he stooped down and picked something up off the grass, a chess piece that someone had left there. The crow was rising steadily, just about to turn, but he anticipated the move (he knew exactly what it was planning to do) and threw the chess piece so hard that he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. It was a good throw; the crow folded up in the air, wings tight to its body, and fell dead with a thump on the cloister roof.

He turned back and looked at her. She was upset, unhappy at the sight of killing, but she did her very best not to show it; still, he could see her thoughts quite clearly. 'Horrid thing,' she said. 'That was very clever of you,' she added.

He pulled a face. 'A friend of mine showed me how to do it,' he said, 'back when I was with the sword-monks. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. I guess I just don't like crows very much.'

'I hate them,' she replied quickly. 'Horrible gloomy creatures. And that one's been hanging around here for days, I keep shooing it away and it keeps coming back, like it was laughing at me or something. Well done,' she added firmly, convincing herself that he'd done a good deed.

He didn't reply; he was thinking of something his friend had told him, about the time he'd killed a crow in a blacksmith's forge, and never had a day's good luck since. He tried to remember the friend's name, but all he could recall was a nickname, Monach, which was just 'monk' in the Morevich dialect. Then he remembered that his friend was dead; killed by the raiders at Deymeson, possibly-most of the monks had died that day. But that was wrong, he wasn't even sure that had happened yet. He shrugged the thought away, and reminded himself that this was just a dream, and he wasn't really here.

The baby was howling, which made it impossible to think straight, anyway. 'You go on in,' he said, 'I'll join you in a minute or so.' She went, walking under an old carved arch he hadn't really taken any notice of before. He stood for a moment looking at it, until he saw what it was supposed to be: the divine Poldarn, standing up in his cart, bringing the end of the world to Torcea. Rather a gloomy subject for a carving, he thought; but of course, this house had once been a monastery, and the monks had a taste for the miserable and depressing in the decorative arts. He followed her, but as soon as he stepped under the arch he realised he wasn't in the cloister garden any more; he was home, in his own house at Ciartanstead, alone in the bed he shared with his wife.

He tried to close his hands on the dream, bring it down as it opened its wings and flapped screeching away; but this time his aim was bad, and the dream dwindled into a speck in the distance. He sat up.

Well, he thought, at least the house is still here. Of course, even if he'd failed, it would take the fire-stream a long time to get here; days, even weeks, depending on whether it gained or lost speed coming down the slopes. Someone would have woken him if the molten rock was lapping round the front porch, or if the roof was on fire. Even in the worst possible outcome, he wasn't likely to be burned alive in his bed. That was a comfort, he felt.

Nevertheless. The shutters were down and latched, but little blades of light were forcing their way through. It was time he was up and about, organising things, getting some work done. Assuming, of course, that there was anything for him to do.

By the time he'd dressed and got his boots on (a painful process; he'd escaped without anything he could properly describe as a burn, but his skin was horribly sensitive; like sunburn, only worse), the household was about its business, the tables were out and laid for breakfast, people were bustling in and out of the doors in pursuit of their appointed tasks. There didn't seem to be as many of them as there should have been, and Poldarn remembered the casualties before he remembered the mistake at the breach; the missing numbers weren't dead, just stranded somewhere in the valley on the other side of the mountain. He felt better after he'd realised that.

'You're up, then.' Rannwey was in charge of catering today. Usually it was Elja's job, but she wasn't there, of course, and wouldn't be back for days. 'We let you sleep in, you were dead beat when you got home last night.'

'Thanks,' Poldarn muttered, wondering how they'd managed to wake up before he did; that was supposed to be impossible, wasn't it? Well, maybe things had changed, either because half the household was away or for some other reason nobody had seen fit to tell him about. Better that way, needless to say. He was pretty sure he wasn't really a morning person at the best of times.

'You sit down,' Rannwey continued briskly, not looking at him. She never looked at him; always over his head or just past his shoulder, as if he wasn't there. 'Porridge and leeks again,' she added. 'Same as usual.'

He nodded. 'We're going to have to do something about that,' he said. 'We can't go on eating that muck for ever.'

Rannwey looked at him. 'Why not?' she said. 'It's good, wholesome food. Also, it's all we've got.'

'Yes, I know. But we must be able to get something different from somewhere. Trade for it with another house, something like that.'

'Really? Where? You don't suppose anybody else is going to be any better off, do you? Worse off, most of 'em, I shouldn't wonder. You want to count your blessings, before you go turning your nose up at good food.'

Well, that was him told; so he sat down and tried to look hungry. He wasn't. Thirsty, yes, but he had no appetite for food just then. But he got porridge and leeks anyway, and did his best to eat it. When breakfast was finally over, he jumped up and headed outside.