Chapter 6 #6
I checked my sleeve. Both sets of fake credentials were still there; also my share of what was left of the money from the salt merchants. Even the stupid signet ring was still on my finger. It would be. The Order swears a vow of poverty, same as the rest of us. They aren’t thieves.
The horses were gone, naturally. Big deal.
I’m a country boy, walking holds no terrors for me.
I stood up, wobbled helplessly and landed on the ground, on my arse.
I looked to see if they’d cut the tendons on the back of my knees, but they hadn’t.
I tried again, only this time I took it nice and steady. Success.
I really didn’t want to look at the bigger picture, but I couldn’t keep it out of my mind. The Order had captured Svangerd. How? No idea. Clearly they’re men of great learning, courage and skill, which explained why they wouldn’t let me join. What am I supposed to do about it? Well?
For a start, I could find out the direction they’d gone in.
Trouble was, with the fight and the wild boar and everything, the ground was so torn up that I couldn’t make it out, like a manuscript that’s been left out in the rain, and all the ink and the colours have run.
I found the man who’d got in the way of the boar.
His guts were lying outside his body, and they were filthy with black dirt and wisps of crumbled dead leaf and twig.
I rolled him over onto his back so I could go through his sleeves and inside his shirt.
That got me a purse full of shiny new gold staurata, a high-class long knife, what Svangerd calls the broken-back pattern, two bread rolls, about a quarter of a pound of dry white cheese and a newish copy of Scrimbald’s Commentary on the Psalms. Waste not, want not.
I tried nibbling a bit of the cheese, but the salt made me feel sick.
I sat down in the leafmould, feeling hopelessly inadequate.
I should be able to read the footprints and drag marks like a page of classic uncials, but all I could see was a churned-up mess.
Meanwhile, a bunch of very serious men had got hold of Svangerd, and were taking her somewhere, and I was just sitting there –
“You clown,” said a woman’s voice.
I spun round on my arse, and saw a woman in a nun’s habit.
The hood was down, so I could see grey hair, cropped short, and a small, heart-shaped face.
It occurred to me that the habit didn’t accord with the dress code of any of the main female contemplative orders, though you’d have to be in the trade to notice.
That and the choice of words; no dizzying leap of intuition needed.
“Piss off,” I said.
She came closer and sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree. Her sleeves were too long, so only her fingertips showed. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You’re in a real mess. Admit it.”
“I admit it. None of your damn business.”
“On the contrary. Your mess is our mess. You do realise, thanks to you, centuries of meticulous planning have just gone straight down the cesspit.”
I closed my eyes. It stood to reason, the Loyal Opposition would have lady goons as well as gentlemen goons.
Given the record of my dealings with them, it was entirely plausible that they’d sent a sister rather than a brother because I’d be reluctant to punch out a woman. “Piss off,” I pleaded. “Please.”
“No chance,” she said briskly. “You need to act. Swiftly and decisively.” She looked at me. “Oh boy,” she said. “We are in trouble.”
“Please?”
“Now you listen to me,” she said. “Svangerd, the love of your life, is in the hands of the Order of Intercession. They’re taking her to Mother Grimhild.
They want the demon. The demon is under orders not to allow itself to be taken.
There’s not a lot it can do, but it’ll fight like hell to stay in there. Have you read Lactantius?”
I shook my head. “Last known copy lost in the Great Fire of—”
“Lactantius,” she said, “book six, chapter nine. How to get demons out of human bodies. Killing the body isn’t always guaranteed to do the trick, so Lactantius gives step-by-step instructions for boiling it out.
Basically you use boiling water and lye to render the flesh and bones down to the consistency of soap.
And there is a surviving copy, in the library of the Order in Kouden.
Hence,” she went on, while I tried to get a grip on myself, “the need for swift and decisive action.”
I looked at her. She had pale grey eyes, soft and cold, with deep crow’s feet at the edges. “You have absolutely no idea what’s at stake here,” she said. “Right now, things couldn’t possibly be worse. That’s why they sent me.”
When I was a kid I was terrified of spiders.
So my brother Kotkel made a point of grabbing every spider he could find and shoving them down the back of my neck, the front of my shirt, in my ear.
Two or three times a night I’d wake up and find a spider crawling over my face, and each morning when I put my shirt and shoes on there’d be at least one little stranger in there with me.
It took him a long time, over a year, but Kotkel cured me of being scared of spiders.
At first I dealt with it by squashing them, smearing them until they weren’t recognisable.
Nowadays, if I notice them at all, I just think, oh look, there’s a spider.
“Marvellous,” I said. “Who the hell are you?”
She sighed. “You really, really don’t want to know,” she said. “And, anyway, that’s entirely beside the point. The point is, if you don’t rescue Svangerd in time, she’ll be dead, and you’ll never see her again. Do you want that?”
“No.”
“Splendid. Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one. Do exactly what I tell you, and everything will be fine.”
I took a deep breath. “Why should I trust you?”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” She gave me one of those looks. “Our interests exactly coincide, how about that? The enemy of my enemy. Strange bedfellows. Or are you so terminally stupid that you’ll allow your idiotic prejudice to kill the woman you love?”
“Said the spider to the fly.” I waited for a reply. Her face told me I didn’t deserve one. I had to concede, it was right. “Fine,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”