Chapter 2 #4
“Let’s see,” I said. “By the time we get to Angkola, that letter will have been shoved down the front of my shirt while I survived a horrendous storm at sea, followed by a shipwreck, followed by three days walking along a beach in the blazing sun.” I smiled at her.
“One thing a lot of people get wrong is the smell. They get the fake looking just right, but they forget all about how it ought to reek to high heaven. Salt water, mould, sweat—” If I wasn’t completely callous and devoid of any proper human feeling, I’d have felt sorry for her.
A hundred large, spent under her direct supervision so officially her fault, and I was going to make it smell like a stevedore’s armpits.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “The Echmen coat all their diplomatic correspondence with size. That’s a fixative, made from rabbit skin.
I had to use local rabbit, but I don’t think anybody’s going to notice.
It means the ink won’t run, even after I’ve drenched it in brine.
But the edges of the parchment will be white with mould, which will be exactly right. ”
I could see she’d had enough, of me, the letter, pretty well everything. “Of course,” she said, trying to be brisk. “Whatever’s necessary. See to it.”
“Oh, I will. I’ll bring it for you to inspect when it’s finished.”
Something for her to look forward to. I saw myself out.
“It’s gross,” Sister Svangerd said. “Put it away.”
“Oh, go on,” I said. “I’ve worked day and night on this for weeks, it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Actually, it’s a masterpiece. I need to show it to someone.”
“It stinks.”
“Doesn’t it just,” I said proudly. “There’s only a handful of men in my profession who’d have thought of that.”
“Put it away.”
I sighed, then rolled the letter up and stuck it in its tube.
That tube, incidentally, was probably the most valuable part of the whole fake.
It was the actual tube in which St Auerbrand smuggled the Third Epistle to the Mezentines out of Antecyrene, rammed up his arse for three days; the most priceless relic in the treasury of the North Star priory in Gautz Overbach, but also the only genuine Echmen diplomatic messenger tube north of the Ostar which wouldn’t be immediately recognised by any reasonably travelled man who saw it.
Of course I’d been obliged to rough it up a bit, to the point where the prior of Gautz probably wouldn’t want it back until it had been soaked in vinegar for a week.
“That’s it, then,” I said. “We’re good to go. ”
One last thing before our departure. “Just wait there,” I told Svangerd. “Won’t be long.”
Call me excessively fastidious, but I hate shitting in ditches.
I know, it’s part and parcel of being a traveller, kings and earls and abbots have to do it when they’re on the road, same goes for all the heroes in the old romances and every saint who ever proselytised.
But if you ask me, it’s sordid and embarrassing, and it doesn’t help if you’re constantly being urged to hurry up and get on with it by an impatient female voice on the other side of the hedge.
I had weeks and weeks of that sort of thing ahead of me before we reached Angkola.
I was therefore determined to have one final civilised crap before we left, in a proper privy, with a door, and cabbage leaves.
Our monastery has seven necessaria; one is reserved for the abbot and his guests, one for the prior and other senior officers and one for the choir.
The other four are situated inside the casement wall, at the cardinal points of the compass (don’t ask me why, but there’s almost certainly a reason).
The nearest one to the gatehouse is slotted in between the charcoal store and, God help us, the dairy.
You go in and there are three stalls, like a milking shed or a confessional, each with its own door.
The middle door was shut, so I nipped into the left-hand stall, closed the door, lifted my robe and sat down.
“You’re off, then,” said a voice through the partition.
It’s the height of bad manners to talk in the necessarium.
It was also impossible, or highly unlikely, that whoever was in there – I didn’t recognise the voice – could know who’d just walked in and sat down, because his door was already shut.
Do I have exceptionally distinctive footsteps?
Or was it the lingering smell of salt and mouldy parchment?
“It’ll be fun,” the voice went on. “Well, not all of it, and I guess it depends on how you define fun. Excitement, new experiences, the heart beating faster. Larks. I shall be very interested to see how you make out.”
I know the voices of every monk in the congregation. This wasn’t one of them. But I had a really, really bad feeling that I’d heard that voice before.
“Yup,” it said, “it’s me. Just dropped in to see you off, wish you bon voyage, all that sort of thing. Of course, you haven’t seen me since Choris. I’ve seen you, constantly. After all, it’s my job.”
The name Sigurthus bubbled up in my memory. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“In the flesh,” the voice said cheerily. “So, it’s off to Angkola with your one true love. What could possibly be better than that?”
Trying not to make a noise, I reached for the cabbage leaves.
I’m not a violent man, if I can possibly help it, but I figured that if I could wipe my arse and get out through the stall door without being heard, I could surprise him before he could slip away and smash his teeth in.
Meanwhile, keep him talking. “It’s not like that and you know it,” I said.
“Says you. But I know you too well. You’re way too neurotic and up yourself to take advantage of this heaven-sent opportunity.
Well, not heaven-sent exactly, quite the opposite in fact, but you know what I mean.
You’ll just go on worshipping from afar, same as ever.
Which is really stupid, actually, and therefore entirely in keeping with your established character. ”
Done with the cabbage leaves. I stood up, smoothing down my habit. “Entirely in keeping with my oath,” I said. “And hers. There’s a difference.”
“Of course there is.” Faint sigh. “You clown. You do realise, she’s crazy about you.”
My flattened palm was pressed against the door. I hesitated. “No,” I said. “She isn’t.”
“That’s what you think. But since it’s a subject you know absolutely nothing about, I wouldn’t give too much weight to your opinion. I’m telling you, she feels that way about you, trust me. I know, for a fact. You know we know. Just like we knew about the bell-tower in Choris.”
That made me shiver, as though something icy cold had just been tipped down the back of my neck. “Yes,” I said, “but you do tell an awful lot of lies.”
“No,” said the voice patiently, “we don’t. We’ve never lied to you.”
“Fibber.”
He laughed. “Misled you, yes. Given you false impressions, allowed you to jump to invalid conclusions. But actual misstatements of fact? Never. And I’m telling you a fact.
Think about it, instead of trying to score dialectic points.
And mind how you go. The mission ahead of you is incredibly dangerous, far more so than anything you’ve ever done before, and your chances of getting out in one piece are something in the order of a hundred and sixty to one.
It’s doable, but you’re going to have to raise your game.
And whatever you do, watch out for the third door on the left.
” A click of the tongue. “Shucks,” he said, “wasn’t supposed to tell you that.
I’ll probably get a formal reprimand, not that I’m unduly bothered.
But if you could somehow manage to erase the third door on the left entirely from your mind, I’d appreciate it. ”
I shoved the door so hard I nearly ripped it off its hinges and sprang out. The middle door was ajar and the stall was empty. I rushed out into the courtyard, but there was nobody to be seen.
Sigurthus, he’d called himself. An agent, presumably quite highly placed, in the nebulous organisation calling themselves the Loyal Opposition, which I don’t believe in. Not one bit.
Blessed are those who have seen and yet have not believed.
I can’t remember if that’s a quotation or whether I made it up for myself, in Choris, or whether it was said to me by one of the Loyal Opposition goons who made my life a misery all the time I was there.
The point being, I’ve seen the Loyal Opposition in action, and the only reasonable explanation of what I saw is that they are who they say they are: the terrestrial agents, human or otherwise, of the forces of Darkness, working tirelessly to frustrate the celestial grand design.
But screw that. I don’t believe in the Invincible Sun, therefore I don’t believe in the Prince of Darkness or any of that nonsense.
The most I’m prepared to accept is that the Loyal Opposition are a bunch of lunatics who sincerely believe that they’re the devil’s earthly henchmen, and who have the ability to do a lot of rather drastic stuff that I can’t explain with my admittedly limited knowledge of physics and natural philosophy.
Anyhow, when the Choris business was wrapping up, this Sigurthus introduced himself to me and told me he was assigned to me and we’d be seeing a lot of each other in the future.
For various reasons which seemed like good ideas at the time I neglected to break his neck on the spot.
And now, apparently, he was back. Joy unbounded.
“You’ve been a long time,” she said. “I know I keep saying you’re full of it, but I thought it was just a figure of speech.”
“I’ve been talking to someone.”
“In the shitter? That’s such a man thing.”
“Sigurthus.”
She turned white as a sheet. I don’t believe in the Loyal Opposition, but she does. “Oh, God,” she said, making the sign of the Ascension across her forehead. “What are we going to do?”