K Parker - Colours in the Steel

He heard several shouts and a grinding noise (sword leaving scabbard) as he vaulted up onto the bench, dropped his bow and grabbed the long-handled whip from its rest. The wagon team were mules, of course; better than one-in-three odds that they weren’t going to budge, and that would be embarrassing. His luck was in, however, which made a pleasant change; even so, there was a man in the act of hauling himself up onto the tailgate by the time the mules moved off at a sharp trot. Without moving from his seat, Gorgas pivoted and lashed out behind him with the whip. He missed, but a couple of barrels chose that moment to fall over and roll against the tailgate, dislodging the one-man boarding party. Another plainsman grabbed one of the canopy stays and ran alongside holding it. Gorgas waited until he’d managed to hop up onto the running-board, his head nicely level with Gorgas’ toecap, before booting him off. By the sound and feel of it, he went under the nearside wheels, which served him right for trying too hard.

He expected further efforts, but they didn’t happen, and before he knew it he was round the corner of the street and going well. From the lack of pursuit he gathered that the remaining carters had written the wagon off to experience and were getting on with their work; a hypothesis that was largely confirmed by a whoosh-boom behind him, a disturbance in the air and a red glow visible out of the corner of his eye. The effect was repeated a number of times before he was out of earshot.

He’s got the recipe right, then , Gorgas said to himself. Not bad going for someone who’d been brought up to regard the wheel as the high-water mark of his people’s technological achievement.

As he drove (north-west and downhill, as far as the streets would let him), he heard and saw a lot more of the same, and blessed his luck for putting him in the way of a clan wagon. One of the first things he’d done was stick the deceased archer’s cap on his head, and the parties of carters and soldiers he passed as he drove took no notice of him. They were all, needless to say, plainsmen; panic, fire and enemy soldiers had cleared this district of everyone who was capable of moving. The logic of it was probably what made him complacent, so that he stopped bothering to keep an eye out; with the result that he didn’t see a man slip out of an alleyway as he drove past and run up on the outside. The first he knew was when someone vaulted up onto the box, pushed him off the bench and grabbed the reins.

He landed painfully, jarring his shoulder and snapping his two remaining arrows. If he’d had time he’d have been in pain; as it was, he only managed to hop on to the tailgate and drop down out of sight because his attacker reined up and brought the wagon to a stop.

This is all Bardas’ fault , he couldn’t help thinking; I try to look after him, and this is what happens . But he knew the accusation was unjust. Properly speaking, it was all of his own making, and one thing he’d always taken pride in was accepting the responsibility for his actions.

Even so; all this scrapping with strangers and running about… And me a respected member of the international banking community .

The cart-thief, whoever he was, had jumped down and gone back to the alleyway he’d first appeared from. Gorgas grinned; a fine athlete, his assailant, but an idiot. He crept forward, sat himself down on the bench and took up the reins.

Just a minute -

There had been something familiar about the way the man had got down off the wagon. It had reminded him of another wagon, a creaky old haywain with a warped front axle; Clefas, Zonaras, Sis and himself underneath pitching up the stooks, Father and Bardas up on the wagon catching them and packing them down, cramming in more than the wain was ever built to carry to save having to make another trip-

‘Bardas?’ he called out. ‘Is that you?’

The man had been on the point of hurling himself at the wagon, all set for an energetic free-for-all on the moving box. He stopped as if he’d run into a wall.

‘Gorgas?’

He grinned, so widely that the glow of the fire on the opposite side of the street shone on his bared teeth. ‘Now that’s lucky,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

‘ Gorgas? ’

‘Well, don’t just stand there, get on the damn wagon.’

Bardas Loredan seemed to collapse, like a punctured grain sack as its contents flow out onto the ground. Everything else he’d managed to cope with, even the bizarre shock of tripping over his ex-pupil sworn-enemy in a pitch-dark alley. But this wasn’t something he could take in his stride; not on top of everything else. The headache was a fairly obvious clue, of course; similarly the suspicious ease with which he’d managed to get this far.

He was beginning to wish he hadn’t. Likewise, the fish who suddenly comes across a fat lugworm floating motionless in the water changes its mind about the quality of its luck once it feels the hook draw through its lip.

‘Bardas,’ said the man on the wagon, ‘we haven’t got time. Get your bum on this seat and let’s be going, while there’s still a chance of getting through.’

Bardas had almost made up his mind as to the right thing to do when he suddenly remembered the girl, lying bleeding in the alleyway behind him. He closed his eyes and mouthed a curse. Gorgas’ letter had mentioned a ship; the ship could carry the girl out, if she lived and Gorgas really could get through and he did have a ship waiting, and about a dozen other provisos. Once again, he had no choice in the matter. Once, just once, it’d be nice to be able to decide for himself. One day, maybe.

‘You’ve really got a ship waiting?’ he said. ‘No lies?’

‘If it’s still there, which is getting less certain by the minute.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘There’s a badly wounded girl in the alley back there. You help me get her up on the wagon, and you see to it that she gets away. Understood?’

‘Do we have to? No offence, Bardas, but is this really the time or the place?’

Anything, anything to be able to make him pay, for the sheer satisfaction of ramming my fist into his face and hearing something crack. But I can’t. ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘Over here.’

Fortunately it was too dark in the shadow of the tall buildings behind him to see Gorgas’ face clearly. He was sure he couldn’t have taken that. As it was, there was an indistinct male shape who took the girl’s feet while he scooped her up under the shoulders. They staggered as far as the tailgate and slid her onto the bed of the wagon. Then her face came under the light of the lantern, and Gorgas said, ‘Gods, Bardas, this is unreal.’

‘What?’

‘I was looking for her, too.’ He lifted his head, and the light revealed him. ‘Of course, you don’t know who she is, do you? Bardas, this is your niece.’

No. What did he say? Isn’t it ever going to stop?

‘I’m not kidding, you know,’ Gorgas said. ‘This is your niece, Iseutz. Niessa’s daughter.’

Bardas started to back away, trod in a pothole, staggered and fell over, landing on his backside and jarring his spine. ‘Sorry to have to break it to you like this,’ Gorgas was saying. ‘Obviously, what with one thing and another, it must be a bit of a shock. But we haven’t got time , Bardas. If you want to have a fit, do it when we’re on the goddamn ship.’

Bardas Loredan shook his head, about the only part of him he could still move. ‘I’m not coming on any ship with you, Gorgas. I’m going to stay here and get killed, just to spite you. Now get out of my sight, you and your…’

‘Niece,’ Gorgas said. ‘And you’re getting on this wagon, if I have to pick you up and carry you.’