K Parker - Shadow

'A what?' the old woman interrupted.

'A scholar. I like to learn things about-well, things. Religion,' he added quickly, before any of them could ask What things? 'Not that I'm a priest or anything. I'm just interested.'

There was a long silence; then the old woman shook her head, as if wondering sadly how it had come to this, and said that maybe he should go over to the old man's place, because he knew all manner of interesting stuff. The edge she put on the word interesting would probably have cut silk in its own weight.

'Thank you,' the brother said. 'Which old man would that be?'

The old woman pursed her lips; then she reached out sideways and grabbed the eight-year-old boy. 'Ebit'll show you the way,' she said. And then he'll come straight back, or I'll clip his ear so it'll make his head spin.' The boy muttered something and took a short, nervous step forward. 'Straight back, mind,' the old woman added.

Ebit led him down and across the street. They were all still there, under their porches and up in their lofts. Absolutely nothing whatsoever better to do, he guessed. Ebit stopped outside a plank door that was grey with age where it wasn't green with mould, and lifted the latch. 'In there,' he said, as if he was feeding a condemned man to the timber wolves at Torcea Fair.

'Thank you,' the brother answered, ducking his head as he walked in.

It was almost completely dark inside, apart from a faint orange glow from the last embers of a fire. He found a table by walking into it, and leaned his hands on the rough-sawn top. No sign of an old man, or sound of breathing apart from his own. Rustic humour? Or had the old boy died and nobody had noticed yet? In support of the latter theory was the extremely strong smell; though nauseating, however, it wasn't quite the odour of decaying flesh. Or at least, not exclusively.

'Over here,' said a voice in the shadows. 'By the fire.'

'Ah,' the brother said. 'Sorry, I didn't see you there. My name's-'

'Monach.' It was a very dry, thin voice, tenuous as the glow of the dying coals, but it wasn't a rube voice. The brother was very good at accents, but this was one he couldn't begin to place.

'That's right,' he said. 'How did you know my name?'

The voice laughed. 'Lefit Melja's eldest girl was listening under the window when you told her mother,' it said. 'She guessed they'd send you over here when they'd taken some money from you. So you're the priest, are you?'

Shrewd, too; as if it had experience in interrogation. 'Well,' Monach replied, 'sort of. Actually, I'm not a priest-not ordained or anything. I'm more of an amateur scholar, a bit of a dilettante really.'

Slight pause. 'It's all right,' the voice said, 'I know what the words mean, I'm just thinking about it.' Thin laugh; essence of laughter, strained and purged so many times that all the flavour had been lost. 'I've passed your test, but you haven't passed mine, or at least not yet. It takes me so long to think things through these days.'

Monach shifted uneasily. 'What's to think through?' he said. 'I haven't even told you what I'm here for yet.'

'Don't need to,' the voice replied gently. 'I ask myself, what's a priest-I'm sorry, what's a scholar doing in Cric, assuming he's not hopelessly lost on the road? It's got to be something to do with the god in the cart. And if it's something to do with that, then yes, I suppose you could be a gentleman scholar, or you could be a priest; and there's all sorts of different kinds of religious, so if you're a priest, what sort are you?' A soft, dry chuckle. 'Twenty years ago I'd have had the answers before you were through the door; not now, though. So suppose you help me along and tell me the answer. It'll save you an hour or so, if you're in a hurry.'

Definitely not a rube. 'By all means,' Monach replied. 'My name is Sens Monach; you may just have heard of my father, Sens Reuden, if you were ever in the military. I'm his younger son. Anyway, I've been making a study of manifestations of the divine for twenty years, gathering material for a book, and so when I heard about this god in the cart business-'

Loud coughing fit; then: 'Yes indeed, I've heard about General Sens. I never heard he had two sons, never heard he didn't. It's perfectly possible, I suppose; if Sens had a younger son, he could well have turned out idle and bookish-often the way with a self-made man. I'll say this for you: if you're a liar you're a conscientious one.' Slight pause, and a muffled scraping noise, possibly the foot of a chair on a stone floor. 'So you want to hear about the god in the cart.'

Monach perched on the edge of the table; it wobbled a bit. 'Yes please,' he said.

'All right. You'll have to excuse the dark, by the way,' the voice added. 'It rests my eyes and I can't afford to waste charcoal. If you've brought your own lamp, though, you can feel free to light it.'

'Left it in my saddlebag,' Monach replied truthfully. 'It doesn't matter. I can remember well enough without having to take notes.'

'Good.' Pause, and more scraping. 'I expect you're curious about me, too,' the voice said (still the same weary, strained tone, slow delivery of words). 'And yes, I'm wandering off the subject, but you'll have to bear with me, sometimes I like to talk while I'm thinking. I don't suppose they told you my name.'

'No.'

'That's good, too. Let's see. My household name is Joiect, and my family name's nothing to interest you; but you may want to have a name to call me by. You're Monach and I'm Joiect.' Another of those laughs. 'For the sake of argument, at any rate.'

'If you say so,' Monach replied.

'Now then. Who I am, I'm a retired soldier. I was born here, and when I was through with my work, I came back here, and here I've been ever since. But I've seen a thing or two, Brother Monach-oh, I'm sorry, there I was still thinking you're a priest. I've seen a thing or two around the empire, let me tell you, and I know a little more about some things than my neighbours. Is that about in line with what you'd imagined?'

Monach laughed in spite of himself. 'Almost,' he said. 'I had you down for a religious yourself, possibly a renegade from the order. I suppose the room being in darkness put that thought into my head, but you've explained about that, so I must've been mistaken. After all, not everybody who sits in the dark is hiding from something.'

'I must also apologise,' Joiect went on, 'about the smell. When I was a soldier I was more than usually fussy about my kit-I used to annoy the drill sergeant no end because he couldn't ever find fault with it. These days, though, it's a terrible effort to stand up, let alone do all the cleaning and tidying and throwing away' A sigh. 'An old woman used to come in and see to the place, but she died. Hardly surprising, she was older than me. I don't like it much, this mess,' the voice said, 'but it's not as if I have a choice.'

'I can imagine it must be hard to bear,' Monach replied. 'I like things neat and tidy myself, though I hope I don't take it to extremes. Of course, it's easy to be fastidious when you've always had people to tidy up after you. About the god in the cart-'

'Oh yes. Let me see, now, what's the best way to explain? I suppose it depends on whether you believe in the gods. Do you?'

'Yes,' Monach answered promptly. 'Well, up to a point, at any rate.'

'I see. And do you believe in a god called Poldarn?'

'Yes. At least, I see no reason not to believe in him, though I don't actually know very much about him. But that shouldn't make any odds. After all, I don't know very much about the forests of northern Beltach, but I believe that they exist.'

'That's an interesting approach,' the voice said. 'Very well; if you believe in Poldarn, then he was here a month or so ago.'

'And if I don't?'