K Parker: Shadow

'All right,' Copis replied. It occurred to him, as they both scrambled out from under the cart, that he hadn't seen her yet, except as a vague presence behind a lantern. He waited until her head and shoulders appeared on the other side of the cart. Of course, she was looking at him too.

'You need to get a wash,' she said. 'Badly.'

He hadn't been expecting beauty, of course, so he wasn't disappointed. On the other hand, she looked younger than she sounded-somewhere between thirty and forty, probably nearer thirty but ground down a bit by a hard and wearing life. She had a sharp face, with a pointed nose and chin, high cheekbones and very dark eyes, and reddish hair tied back out of the way, as if she couldn't be doing with it. She was wearing a man's riding coat, very faded and rather tatty at the neck.

'If you've quite finished staring,' she said, and climbed up on to the box. 'You can sit in the back for now. No offence, but you smell of mud.'

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen himself either-he wasn't inclined to count the reflection he'd seen in the clouded water of the flood pools back by the river. 'All right,' he said, 'find a river or a stream or something and I'll wash it off. There wouldn't be any dry clothes in the back there, would there?' he added.

'Yes,' she replied over her shoulder as she moved the horses on. They were both sluggish and restive after standing all night in the traces. 'Of course he was taller than you, and bigger across the shoulders. You'll look like you're wearing your big brother's hand-me-downs.'

Maybe they are, at that; anything's possible. 'Doesn't matter,' he replied. 'I'm still soaked to the skin here.'

She was looking straight ahead. 'Under the cover,' she said. 'You'll find a blanket roll, they're inside that. And there's his god robes, of course; won't matter so much with them, they're all loose and flowing, fit anybody.'

The dead man's clothes were much too big, just as she'd said they'd be, but the waxed hide of the cover had kept most of the rain out. The simple act of putting on dry clothes turned out to be a moment of sublime luxury-would I have enjoyed that so much if I knew who I was? Probably not-and afterwards he sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the tailboard, quite happy simply not to be wet.

'That'll have to do,' Copis called out, some time after. 'Right, you have a wash while I have a pee. Don't be too long about it.'

It was a beautiful place, wherever it was. Below the road, on the right-hand side, the ground fell away quite steeply into a small combe, so carefully folded into the moor that it'd be easy to miss if you weren't paying attention. A stream ran down the middle of the combe, draining into what was either a large pond or a very small lake, according to mood and preference, before breaking over a natural dam of boulders and falling fifteen feet or so into a churning white mess hemmed in by a tangled border of briars, ferns, docks and cow parsley. Below that the stream ran fast and thin over a rocky bed and soaked away into a bog. Two thin thorn trees flanked the splash, and he saw a pair of crows sitting in the stiff branches of the nearest tree, facing perversely into the wind.

A glance at the brown, peat-soaked water of the top pool left him with the conclusion that bathing in it wouldn't leave him any cleaner than he was already, so he picked his way round the edge and scrambled down the rocks to the splash. Off to the left of it was a little basin of calm water, overhung by a broad, flat stone, as handy as a table. Pushing his way through the ferns he took off his clothes and piled them up on the flat stone, then walked into the splash. It was cold enough to make him wince, and the spray hit him in the face, blinding him for a moment. He walked in until the water was up to his neck, ducked his head under the surface and worked his fingers through his hair, feeling the caked mud and blood loosen. One of the crows got up, flew a circuit round the pool, and pitched in the other tree.

Too cold to stay in longer than absolutely necessary… He hopped out on to the stone table, dragged his clothes back on over his wet skin, then lay down on his stomach and looked at his face in the still water of the basin.

So that's me, he thought. Oh well.

He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't the sad, rectangular face that he saw, with its long, straight nose and pointed chin, and the eyes were downright miserable, completely out of keeping with the exhilarating feeling of the cold water on his skin and the blood tingling in his cheeks. He'd been expecting someone younger, someone as young as he felt, but even though his hair was slicked back and wet he could see streaks of grey at the temples and sides, fringing his small, flat ears. He could see the smooth, slightly dark blemish of an old scar, running down from the corner of his left eye to the middle of his cheekbone, and another on the same side, the length of a thumbnail, where the web of his mouth had been split.

Disappointed… He felt as if he'd been promised a house and given a falling-down old barn, with a bare plank door stiff on its hinges and ivy picking the mortar out from between the stones. Not a cheerful face, by any means; waterproof, and that was about all you could say for it.

'Hurry up.' He heard Copis' voice, away at the top of the combe. 'What are you doing down there, for pity's sake?'

'Just a moment,' he called back. One last look at the face-it was frowning, and the frown settled easily into grooves it had worn for itself. He picked up a pebble and flipped it through the middle of the face's forehead.

'A war,' he repeated. 'What's that about?'

Copis looked at him severely down her nose. 'You mean you don't-you really have lost your memory, haven't you? Oh well. It's like this,' she went on. 'Long story, so pay attention. The emperor-you do know about the emperor, don't you?'

'No.'

All morning the road had looked pretty much the same, a grey and brown ribbon across a green and brown surface, not even straight. In the distance on either side were the vague shapes of hills, but they were hazy, indistinct. Low cloud, Copis said, usual for this time of year. In autumn and winter it was low cloud, in spring it was mist and in summer it was heat-haze. Put another way, you never got to see the hills, not that they were all that interesting anyway.

'Oh, bloody hell,' she sighed. 'All right. How's the best way to explain this? We live in the empire, all right? This is the northern end, the bit that doesn't really matter very much; the emperor and the capital and all that stuff, they're on the other side of the bay, where I come from. Clear so far?'

'More or less.'

'Excellent. Now then, about six days north of the Mahec-you remember what I told you about the Mahec?'

'It's a river. Somewhere.'

'That's right, and it's the frontier, or at least where the frontier used to be. I don't suppose many people know where it really is these days, and probably they aren't telling. Things aren't going well for the empire right now, if you see what I mean.'

'I see.'

'Anyway,' Copis went on, 'about five years ago the emperor sent a new general to take over on the frontier; and it's the usual story, after getting thumped a few times he came back and drove the enemy away over the mountains, and so on and so forth; and then he announces that he's taking over everything north of the Bohec-heard it all before, of course; in fact, I wonder why they still bother, they should know by now it usually ends in tears. I can't remember the exact figure, but it's something like seventy emperors in the last hundred and fifty years, and maybe a dozen of them died in their beds. Silly, really.'

'Yes,' he replied, for want of anything better to say. A flock of geese flew overhead, very high, as if they wanted nothing to do with what was beneath them.