K Parker - Shadow

Copis frowned. 'Not sure,' she replied. 'The impression I got was that we aren't committed to staying anywhere till we register in the morning; so if we get up good and early we can scout around and find somewhere before we sign in at the what's-its-name, prefecture.' She yawned. 'This is an odd town,' she said. 'Not the oddest I've ever been to, not by a very long way, but still odd. Good for business, though.'

'That's true,' Poldarn said absently. He was still watching the light. 'One of these days, you'll have to explain to me about Guild towns. I've heard people talking about them, but all I've gathered so far is that they're different and not all that pleasant to visit.'

'You've been to Mael,' Copis said sleepily. 'That's a Guild town.'

'True. Now that was an odd place.'

'Tell you about it in the morning,' Copis sighed, and turned over on to her side. She was occupying the whole bed, and Poldarn didn't feel like bickering, so he grabbed the cushion off the chair for a pillow and lay down on the floor. Just before he fell asleep, he thought he heard something moving about in the thatch directly over his head, but he wasn't sure; it could just as easily have been the crows in his dream, spreading their wings and launching themselves wearily into the darkness of his mind.

'It's him, isn't it?' one of them said.

'It's him.' The speaker, an old man with a thick bush of unruly white hair, rested both palms on the table-top. 'No doubt about it whatsoever.' He paused for a moment, catching his breath, then went on: 'I was more or less sure when I heard the report from Sansory, about the man who met with Chaplain Cleapho but escaped before they could catch him. Then there was the message from the inn-full marks to your sword-brother, by the way, it was an inspired idea to set the innkeeper to watch out for him-and I was almost certain. Now I've seen him with my own eyes. It's him.'

There was a long silence. 'That's settled, then,' the abbot said at last. 'Now that we know it's him, what shall we do?'

There were no suggestions. Father Abbot leaned forward a little in his chair, elbows on the table. 'The obvious solution would be to kill him, or to load him with chains and send him to Torcea. I'm not sure what we could charge him with, but there's bound to be something. In any event, I don't suppose the emperor will be very particular about details.'

He paused, waiting for someone to contradict him. Nobody seemed inclined to say anything. Father Abbot frowned. For once, unanimous agreement with his decision wasn't what he wanted.

'With respect.' At last, the abbot thought. More than anything else, he wanted a way of not having to do what obviously needed to be done. 'With respect,' the man who'd spoken repeated, 'I don't believe either of those courses of action is either necessary or advisable.'

Father Abbot gestured to him to continue.

'The point is,' the speaker continued (he was a short, fat monk with very curly grey hair and a rather babyish face; he was also the deacon in charge of security and defence), 'we have excellent grounds for believing that-well, we may know who he is, but he doesn't.'

That wasn't what the abbot had been expecting to hear. He was interested.

'My agents have been looking for him for some time now,' the deacon went on. 'The plain truth is, they couldn't find him, except for one; and for practical reasons that agent was in no position to file regular reports. I've now had an opportunity to piece together what we've learned so far. I think you'll agree, it puts a different complexion on the matter.'

'Go on,' Father Abbot said. Nobody else spoke.

'To cut a long story short,' the deacon said, 'we believe that on his way from here to Boc he was ambushed by an enemy unit sent specially to find him-how they knew where to look I'll deal with later-and there was a short but very fierce fight. We believe that he was the only survivor of that battle; what's more, we're almost certain that during the fighting he took a heavy blow to the head that knocked him out. When he woke up, he found that he'd lost his memory. He didn't know who he was, where he was, or even what language he was speaking in. We believe that he still hasn't got his memory back; in fact, I've taken advice from my colleagues in the infirmary and one or two lay experts in the field, and they assure me that the most likely outcome will be that unless he's suddenly presented with the truth about his past, he'll quite likely never remember, neither who he is nor what he's done. To all intents and purposes, he's a different man altogether. And as such,' the deacon said, 'not only would it be wrong for us to kill him or betray him to the authorities; it would also be a wickedly negligent waste of a remarkably useful opportunity to make use of him.'

'Well,' said the abbot, 'we can't have that, can we? Perhaps you'd better explain your idea to the rest of us.'

The deacon made a short, crisp bow. 'By all means,' he said, and proceeded to tell the chapter what he had in mind. At the end of his presentation, Father Abbot was wearing a very slight smile.

'A very elegant solution to the problem,' he said, 'provided, of course, that your information is accurate and you can get him to do what you have in mind. It's also the nastiest, most vindictive punishment I've ever heard anybody suggest, and therefore entirely suitable. As long as you're sure on those two points, I'm quite happy for you to proceed. Opinions, gentlemen?'

Nobody spoke for a long time. Then one of the monks shook his head.

'I'm not sure,' he said. 'I know who he is and what he's done-more to the point, what he would've done if it wasn't for this freak accident we've heard about. Even so, I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy.'

Father Abbot breathed out through his nose. 'Your humanity does you credit,' he said. All in favour.'

The vote was, of course, unanimous; every vote of the chapter in council since the foundation of the order had been unanimous, or at least that was what it said in the minutes. Nevertheless, Father Abbot wasn't blind or stupid. He could see that at least one of the councillors was unhappy with the decision, not counting himself. (But then, if he'd opposed every sensible measure that he found morally repugnant, the affairs of the order would've ground to a halt ten years ago.)

Poldarn woke up, and found that he was sitting upright, both hands clenched. He assumed that it was because he'd been having a bad dream.

This time there was definitely somebody moving about, and not just outside, actually in the room with them. He glanced over at Copis; she was fast asleep, lying diagonally across the bed, one foot and one arm sticking out from under the covers. Just to be sure, he kept still and waited to hear her breathe. It seemed to be a long time before she did.

Whoever it was moved again. Poldarn stretched out with his fingertips until he identified the hilt of his sword, and carefully teased it towards him until he could get his left hand around it and pull it smoothly across the floor. He wasn't wearing a belt or a sash, so when he got to his feet he held it pressed to his waist with his left hand in exactly the right place.

He closed his eyes-it was too dark to see anything, and somehow he knew he'd be able to make more sense of what was going on if he shut off his vision and relied entirely on hearing and touch. He had an idea he'd practised fighting blindfold or in a darkened room at some point in his life.

Curiously, as soon as he closed his eyes he could see his circle. It was like being back in his dream, the one he'd just come from (it wasn't the dream, because there weren't any crows; at least, he didn't think there were any crows. Of course, he wouldn't be able to see them even if there were any, in the dark with his eyes shut). The circle was as clear as anything; he knew where it was in the same way that he knew where his feet were, without needing to look or listen. He applied his mind to the presence of his enemy, feeling for his circle -And found it, a fraction of a second before it burst in on his own. The draw happened; but instead of the firm, soft resistance of flesh, he felt the sword in his hand spring back, like a hammer dropped in its own weight on to the face of an anvil. Whoever it was had parried the cut.