K Parker - Shadow

He hoped not, since he had no idea what he'd done and therefore couldn't repent and seek salvation, and he didn't want to end up on a stall in some crowded market of scrapped souls.

'What the hell do people want with all this junk?' he asked.

Copis grinned. 'It may look like junk to you, but it's prettier than a field of buttercups to some people. Just think of that town we passed through, where they'd cut down all the trees for charcoal. It costs a small fortune to make good iron, and as much again to turn it into steel, and here's all the raw material you could ever want, all ready to be heated up and bashed into any shape you like, none of that tedious mucking about with smelting and rolling and hammering into blooms. It's all good stuff, this,' she went on, gesturing vaguely at the heaps and piles. 'They don't make armour and weapons out of any old rubbish. Where else could you get best oil-hardening steel at twenty quarters a hundredweight?' She realised that Poldarn was looking at her oddly. 'I had a regular who was in the scrap trade,' she explained. 'Really loved his work, I guess, he'd go on for hours about what he called the poetry of it all-you know, taking something that was all busted up and finished with and turning it into something new and useful. I've got to admit, the idea of that appealed to me in a funny sort of a way. I mean, if you've got to have wars, it's nice that someone can get something useful out of it at the end.'

Poldarn nodded gravely. 'It's just a shame they can't do the same sort of thing with all the dead bodies,' he said.

'Don't you believe it.' Copis shook her head. 'There's bone-meal, and compost; and they say the ash from funeral pyres makes wonderful lye, for soap and perfumes and stuff. I've never heard of anybody making a business out of it, but then, it's not the sort of thing you'd admit to, not if you didn't want to turn off all your potential customers. I mean, one block of soap looks pretty much like another; who knows or cares where it came from?'

'You're joking, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Copis admitted. 'Probably. It was the look on your face. I had no idea you were so squeamish.'

'Am I?'

'Apparently. My guess is that in your previous life you were some kind of clerk, spent your life perched on a stool copying out letters and yelling the place down if you nicked your finger when you sharpened your pen.'

He looked seriously at her. 'Do you think that's a possibility?'

'Anything is possible, but that would be pretty low down the list.'

The evening meal at the Charity and Diligence consisted of boiled leeks and red cabbage in a thin grey gravy, with a slab of coarse barley bread the size of a roof slate and a wedge of hard white cheese. 'Nourishing,' Copis remarked with her mouth full, 'wholesome, and tastes disgusting. Welcome to the city.'

The dining-room, which had served the same function when the building was still a religious house, was almost as big as the hall. There were four long lines of tables and benches on either side, enough room for three hundred people who didn't mind their neighbours' elbows in their gravy. It was full, and extremely noisy. From time to time a server passed up and down the aisles with a big earthenware jug; it was just as well that they'd managed to get places at the top end of a table, near the kitchens and the buttery, since the jugs never seemed to make it further than a third of the way down the line before running dry. Catching the server's attention was a simple matter of sticking out an arm or a knee. The paintings on the ceiling weren't quite as fine as those in the hallway, but the frescoes on the walls must have been exquisite at one time, before the damp got behind them and levered them out in handfuls. 'Scenes from scripture,' Copis told him with a yawn, when he asked. 'Not that I'm any expert; half of these don't mean anything to me. But there's Actis stealing the sun from the giants-bloody silly story, that-and that one's Cadanet sieving the stars, assuming that big round thing's meant to be a sieve, and the one next to it is Sthen and Theron drinking the sea.' She hesitated for a moment, then looked at him. 'You haven't got a clue what I'm talking about, have you?' she said.

He looked away. 'I know what you're thinking,' he said. 'We must have different gods where I come from.'

'Well…' She shrugged. 'I don't want to know. Eat your dinner before it gets cold.'

That seemed a sensible suggestion, and while he was doing it he tried not to look at the walls or the roof. It stood to reason, though; a man might forget his name and family, but something as basic as scripture (or mythology, or fairy-tales, whatever you liked to call it) ought to have stuck somewhere, along with language and how to tie knots and which hand to wipe your bum with. Even if they'd been knocked back into the scrap, seeing pictures that told the stories ought surely to bring them huddling back into the light. But she was right: none of it meant anything to him, except…

He froze, halfway through chewing his last slab of cheese. He'd recognised one of them, he was sure of it. He'd recognised it, but it was so familiar that he hadn't noticed it; his mind had pushed past it in search of something more interesting. He looked round, had to look three times before he found it 'That one,' he said, pointing. 'Over there, just under the window.'

Copis frowned at him. 'I'd really rather we didn't go into this,' she said.

'Yes,' he replied irritably, 'but I think I know what it is. That big man with the white beard, isn't he just about to open that box? And when he does, I think something escapes.'

'That's right,' Copis said, sounding excited. 'The four seasons. The old man is Cadanet, of course, and-'

'Cadanet,' he replied. 'Yes, I knew that. And his wife-that'll be the thin woman with the funny hat-'

'Veil of stars, actually, but-'

'Her name,' he went on, closing his eyes, 'is Holden. She gave him the box.'

'You've got it.' Copis nodded frantically. 'Go on, what else can you remember? Where did she get the box from?'

He clenched his fists, as if trying to squeeze the information out between his fingers. 'No,' he said, 'I don't know that. But it was some kind of trick.'

'That's it,' Copis said. 'Olfar gave her the box while Cadanet was sleeping.'

'And before he opened it, it was always summer?'

'Exactly.' Copis breathed a sigh of relief. 'You've no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that.'

He thought for a moment before answering. 'All right,' he said, 'but it doesn't prove anything. Just because I remember one story…'

'It's a start,' Copis interrupted. 'And it's a pretty basic story, the fall from grace. I think the first time I heard it was when I was four. Maybe even earlier than that, because everything before I was six is really just a jumble. What I mean is, it'd be one of the first ones you learned, so it stands to reason it'll be one of the first you remember. Assuming it works like that,' she added.

'Assuming.'

'Well, I don't know, do I? And why have you got to be so downbeat about everything? It gets on my nerves sometimes.'

He grinned. 'Who's being downbeat? I've actually remembered a name. You have no idea…' He paused; another picture had caught his eye. Irritatingly, it was too high up and far away for him to be able to see it clearly, but he could definitely make out a man and a woman in a cart, with a burning town in the background. He pointed at it.

'What?' Copis said.

'There,' he replied. 'Top left corner. It's in shadow from where we're sitting, but-'

'My God, yes, fancy that.' Copis leaned back to get a better view, jogging the elbow of the woman sitting next to her; she swore, and went back to her food. 'You know,' she said, 'that's odd. I could've sworn the cart was my idea.'