K Parker - Shadow

For a very brief moment Poldarn felt himself making a tactical assessment, but this wasn't some open plain in the middle of nowhere, without witnesses or bystanders, and besides, his sword was back in the cart. He dismissed the option from his mind. That left running away or staying put and finding out what was going on. Another choice. What fun.

'Next time I say we should leave town,' Copis hissed, but he shook his head. The soldiers were headed straight for them; no chance now that they'd turn out to be on their way somewhere else, nothing to do with them. It was at times like this, he reflected, that he really wished he knew what his real name was.

The soldiers stopped about a yard in front of them and, amazingly, saluted. Not having a clue about how to salute back, he kept still and waited for them to say something. Which they did.

'Lord Cleapho's compliments,' was what they said, 'and would you both care to join him for dinner?'

'Thanks,' Copis said, 'but we've just eaten.'

The soldier smiled. 'You can't call the slop they dish up in there food,' he said. 'And besides,' he added, nodding at Poldarn, 'he barely touched his, he was too busy looking at the pictures. This way.'

Poldarn stepped between Copis and the soldier. 'Just a moment,' he said. 'While I was in there eating my dinner, you were watching me?'

'Not me,' the soldier said, 'but you were being watched. What do you take us for, peasants?'

Copis was tugging at his sleeve like a little girl, trying to warn him about something. He took no notice. 'Then you know who I am?' he said.

'Of course we do,' the soldier replied, looking at him. 'Now can we please get out of sight, before everybody in Sansory figures out what's going on?'

Copis was pulling hard now; he was tempted just to push her away, but instead he turned round and asked, 'What?'

'I'm going back inside,' she said. 'You don't need me there.' She was looking at the soldier. 'Really you don't.'

The soldier shrugged. 'You can do what the hell you like,' he said to her, then turned back to Poldarn. 'Now come on, before you get me into trouble.'

It didn't look like he had any choice in the matter, which suited him fine. He'd had enough of choices to last him. 'All right,' he said. 'After you.'

The soldier led the way; his colleague waited for a moment, then fell in behind Poldarn, making him walk fast to avoid having his heels trodden on. Whoever he was, they weren't in awe of him to any serious extent.

'All right,' he said to the first soldier, 'who do you think I am?'

The soldier laughed without turning round. 'I could tell you exactly who I think you are,' he said, 'but I'm not supposed to insult His Grace's guests. Low doorway, mind your head.'

The door led through into a little hidden courtyard, beyond which was another small archway leading to a narrow spiral staircase, with an uncomfortably steep pitch and rate of turn; by the time they reached the top, Poldarn was tired and more than a little dizzy. The soldier knocked three times on a very solid-looking oak door, and they went through into a cramped, circular room, presumably the top of some tower. In the middle of the room was a plain round table, with two straight-backed chairs; Cleapho was sitting in one of them, and there were three or four brass tubes with the ends of rolled-up papers sticking out of them. Two more soldiers stood behind Cleapho's chair, in front of another stout door. No sign of any food, drink, cups, plates or cutlery.

'You're a bloody fool,' Cleapho said, frowning. 'What the hell was all that about?'

Poldarn opened his mouth to speak, but realised that he didn't know where to begin. Before he had a chance to order his thoughts, Cleapho went on: 'I know it's all part of the mystique, this deliberately walking around in plain sight because you're so cool and daring, but next time please leave me out of it. Dear God; when I saw you standing there looming over me, I nearly had a heart attack.' He shook his head, then went on, 'I'm assuming you've got plenty of your people here, because this'-he indicated the four soldiers-'is all I've brought, and after your stunt in the hall I'm starting to feel nervous. Damn it,' he added, 'I'm not used to this sort of thing, all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. If this is the way you conduct business, I'm not sure I want to get involved with you.'

I could try and explain, Poldarn thought. And I could end up at the bottom of those stairs with a broken neck. Still, this man knows who I am. It'd be nice to find that out, even if I don't live very long to savour the knowledge. 'Please,' he said, as appeasingly as he could, 'I want you to listen to this as patiently as you can. I promise I'm not fooling about. You see-'

'Oh, forget it,' Cleapho interrupted. 'If you get some kind of morbid pleasure out of taking silly risks, that's up to you. Let's get down to brass tacks; to be precise, this business up the road. The point is, I appreciate why you did it, but it was too early. Tazencius and his people aren't ready. He hasn't even started recruiting openly yet-dammit, he hasn't had anything to recruit for, that's my point, there's been no build-up, just this; suddenly, wham. And if this is your idea of an opening gambit, please put your ear up against the stable pump and wash your brain out, because the supply of large cities in these parts is somewhat limited; we can't go torching one a week until Tazencius has got his act together, we'll run out of the bloody things. Unless we can get Cronan-'

He stopped short, held up his hand for silence. Something was going on down below.

'Shit,' Cleapho said. 'Oh, that's wonderful. You two, hold them on the stairs.' The two soldiers who'd brought him there disappeared immediately through the door they'd just come through. 'We'll go out this way, on to the roof. That's assuming,' he added with a scowl, 'that they aren't up there already, which they probably are. God, what a mess.'

He stood up, as the other two soldiers pushed open the door behind them and led the way into a dark passage. 'Well, come on,' he said. 'I had an idea you'd be more trouble than you're worth. Next time, maybe Tazencius'll listen to me, instead of teaming up with a bunch of pirates.'

Poldarn could hear unsettling noises from the stairwell: shouting, banging, sharp, crisp metallic noises. It occurred to him that Cleapho had just sent two men to their deaths and they'd obeyed him without a moment's hesitation, obedience being for them an instinctive action, like the drawing of a sword. He decided to follow Cleapho.

The passage led out into the open air. To his right was a battlement, below which he could just see the main courtyard; on his left was the sloping side of the roof, presumably of the refectory (though he wasn't at all sure; going up the spiral staircase had messed up his sense of direction). It was just starting to get dark, and the yard was flooded with yellow light from the chambers beneath. 'Well, that's all right, then,' Cleapho was saying as the soldiers in front of them kicked open another door that apparently led into the refectory roof-space, ducked under the low lintel and climbed in. 'It's just as well one of us took the trouble to figure out the geography of this place. And I thought you were the one who was supposed to be so careful about details.'

Then it started to go badly. One of the soldiers who'd just gone through backed out again, struggling to draw his sword but without enough room to do so. It was a moment or so before Poldarn noticed the blood on his face. Cleapho swore, pushed past the soldier and started to run. Before Poldarn could follow him, someone else came through the doorway-another soldier, or at least a man in a mailshirt with a sword; he swung at the wounded guard, who ducked out of the way is as another man emerged and lunged at him with a halberd, stabbing him just under the lower lip of his breastplate. The guard made a quiet, wordless noise, and then the man with the halberd pushed hard, shoving him backwards over the battlement like someone pitching hay. Then he turned to face Poldarn, while his colleague set off after Cleapho.